Three Restaurants, Three Phones, None of Them Ringing Out

Hao's Restaurant Group keeps three kitchens lit in Richmond, BC. Hao's Lamb Restaurant at 4260 Number 3 Road. Royal Beef at 4791 McClelland Road. Hao's Tapas Kitchen at 6451 Buswell Street. Minutes apart. The rush hours land on top of one another.

The one call that cannot be missed

The dish Hao's Lamb is known for is a whole lamb, roasted slowly until the skin cracks and the meat gives way. It costs $788.99 and it must be booked 24 hours ahead — the oven needs the head start. That is the call nobody can afford to miss. And the three restaurants all ring hardest at exactly the same time.

Before DineCall, each restaurant answered its own line with whatever was available between tasks. During a dinner rush, the line might be busy, might go unanswered, or might be picked up by someone in the middle of something else. The whole-lamb caller who got voicemail might not call back.

Hao's Lamb Restaurant — the original

4260 Number 3 Road, open 11:00–15:00 and 17:00–22:00 daily, (778) 868-1238. Twelve menu categories, 126 dishes. Whole roast lamb carved at the table, Henan hand-pulled hui-mian, lamb soup, skewers cut fresh over charcoal. The whole-roast-lamb orders begin on the phone — a lamb has to be spoken for before the oven can be lit.

Royal Beef — the banquet house

4791 McClelland Road #1620, open 10:30–15:00 and 17:00–22:00 daily, (778) 986-8888. A house built around beef: steamed beef short rib, gold-medal braised oxtail, supreme stewed beef, sizzling-plate cuts. The calls tend to come from tables deciding what to eat on the way over — eight people, a celebration, asking whether the room is free and what the group menu looks like.

Hao's Tapas Kitchen — the long day

6451 Buswell Street #190, open 10:00 to 22:00 with no afternoon break, (778) 939-6766. Clay pots still bubbling when they land, ten kinds of hand-pleated dumplings, soup buns, phoenix-claw casserole. No afternoon break means no quiet stretch on the phone. The lunch call, the mid-afternoon call, and the late-supper call all arrive on the same line.

What DineCall runs across all three

The website at haoscatering.ca and the three phone lines are all DineCall. The AI answers all three numbers — it knows which restaurant it picked up for and quotes that kitchen's menu. A caller to Hao's Lamb hears Hao's Lamb dishes; a caller to Royal Beef hears Royal Beef. The three houses keep what makes each of them worth the drive.

The AI takes pickup orders against each restaurant's own menu and books tables on the same call. The whole-roast-lamb booking — date, time, party size, name — is confirmed on the call and written directly to the live board so the kitchen has the 24-hour head start the oven needs.

Online ordering runs across the group. Calls, orders and bookings from all three rooms land on one live board. Same three numbers on the doors. No new hardware. Nothing new to learn.