Built for Central New Jersey restaurants
Never miss another phone order.
Cinato answers your restaurant's calls in seconds, takes accurate pickup orders, and sends them straight into your POS while your staff keeps the line moving. Complex calls transfer to a human, instantly.
Tony's Pizzeria
Inbound call · dinner rush
The phone is still where restaurants lose the most money
43%
of restaurant phone calls go unanswered
30–60%
of calls missed during the dinner rush
60%
of missed callers never call back. They order elsewhere
~$30
average pickup order that walks away with each missed call
Sources: industry studies of U.S. restaurant call handling, 2024–2025. Your numbers may vary; that's what the calculator below is for.
How it works
Like hiring your best phone person, one who never misses a shift
No new hardware. No changing your number. Live in about a week, with white-glove setup included.
Forward your line, your way
Start in overflow mode: Cinato only picks up when your staff can't, whether that's after a few rings, during rush, or after hours. Or let it answer every call from ring one. Your existing number stays the same.
The AI takes the order, accurately
It knows your full menu: sizes, modifiers, half-and-half toppings, "pie" means pizza. It asks clarifying questions, never invents items or prices, and reads the whole order back before anything is submitted.
Orders land in your POS or review queue
Confirmed orders go straight into Clover or SkyTab and print to your kitchen. Prefer a safety net? Draft mode sends orders to a staff screen for one-tap approval first.
Humans handle what humans should
Complaints, refunds, allergies, catering, or anyone who asks for a person: the call transfers to your staff immediately. You watch every call, order, and dollar recovered on a simple dashboard.
Features
Everything a great phone person does. Nothing they shouldn't.
Built around one rule: fewer wrong tickets, zero missed calls, and a fast path to a human whenever it matters.
Direct-to-POS orders
Confirmed orders are submitted into Clover or SkyTab and print straight to the kitchen. No re-keying, no missed tickets. Most "AI answering" services just point callers to a website. Cinato finishes the order.
Overflow or full answering
Choose when the AI picks up: only when staff are slammed (after N rings), after hours, or every call from ring one. Change it any time from your dashboard.
Knows your menu cold
Synced from your POS with every modifier, size, and price. We tune it to how your customers actually talk: "large plain," "combo #3," half-and-half toppings, well done.
Smart human transfer
Complaints, refunds, allergy questions, catering, or a caller who asks for a person: the AI transfers to your staff immediately. It never bluffs its way through a call it shouldn't handle.
Staff review mode
Not ready for full autopilot? Every order arrives as a draft your staff approves with one tap before it hits the kitchen. Flip on auto-submit whenever you're confident.
SMS confirmations
Customers get a text with their order and pickup time the moment it's confirmed. Fewer "where's my order?" calls and no-shows.
Dashboard & recovered revenue
See every call, transcript, and order, plus a running total of the revenue the AI recovered. Know exactly what it's earning you, every week.
Instant kill switch
One tap sends every call back to your staff, any time, no questions asked. You're always in control of your own phone line.
Built conservative, on purpose.
- AI discloses itself at the start of every call
- Never takes card numbers by voice. Pay at pickup or secure link
- Never invents menu items, prices, or availability
- Allergy & medical questions always go to your staff
- Recordings only with disclosure, retained only as needed
Missed-revenue calculator
How much is your phone costing you?
Drag the sliders to match your restaurant. Most owners underestimate this number by half.
Industry studies put this at 30–60% during peak hours, ~43% overall. Busy signals, rings-out, and long holds all count.
Typically 60–70% of inbound restaurant calls are someone trying to place an order.
Estimated revenue walking away every month
$4,914
- Missed orders per month
- ~176
- Lost revenue per year
- $58,968
- Recovered with Cinato (answering 90%)
- +$4,423/mo
- Return vs. Cinato plan ($250/mo)
- 17.7× return
Estimates for illustration only, based on your inputs and published industry averages. Your dashboard shows actual recovered revenue once you're live.
POS integrations
Orders end up where they belong: your kitchen
An answered call is only half the job. Cinato closes the loop by putting the order into your system, not a voicemail or a website link.
Clover
Menu sync, live pricing, and direct order injection. Confirmed orders print straight to your kitchen.
SkyTab / Shift4
Order routing for SkyTab restaurants through the Shift4 partner channel, with staff-review mode available today.
Any other POS
Square, Lightspeed, Aloha, or a 20-year-old register. Orders arrive on a tablet, dashboard, or printer for one-tap confirmation.
Cinato AI is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Clover, Shift4, or Square. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
Pricing
One plan. Costs less than one missed Friday night
Simple monthly pricing with no long-term contracts and no per-order fees. Big-name alternatives charge $450–600/mo just to answer, and still send callers to a website to order.
Cinato AI
Your AI phone-order employee, set up and maintained for you.
$249.99/month
- White-glove setup and menu tuning, in person
- Overflow, after-hours, or full-time answering
- Direct order submission to Clover or SkyTab
- Staff-review mode works with any POS
- Automatic menu & price sync
- SMS confirmations to customers
- Call log + transcripts dashboard
- Recovered-revenue analytics
- Human transfer any time, instant kill switch
- Month-to-month, cancel any time
Plus usage, billed at cost. AI call minutes and text messages are passed through with no markup, itemized on every invoice. For a typical restaurant this runs a few dollars a day, and it only grows when the AI is taking orders you would have missed.
Central Jersey pilot program: the first restaurants in Edison, Metuchen, Woodbridge, and nearby towns get discounted founding-customer pricing and in-person setup.
FAQ
Questions owners actually ask
Will my customers know they're talking to an AI?
Yes. The assistant introduces itself as an AI at the start of every call. In practice, customers care about one thing: getting their order in fast without sitting on hold. Anyone who prefers a person just says so, and the call transfers to your staff immediately.
What happens when a call is too complicated for the AI?
It transfers to your staff, immediately and automatically. Complaints, refunds, allergy questions, catering, custom requests, or a caller asking for a human twice all trigger a transfer. The AI is built to say "let me connect you to the restaurant" instead of guessing.
Which POS systems do you support?
Clover is our first-class integration, with SkyTab/Shift4 through their partner program. If you use anything else (Square, Lightspeed, an old register), staff-review mode works with any setup: orders appear on a tablet or dashboard, and your staff confirms with one tap.
Can it take credit card payments over the phone?
No, by design. The AI never collects card numbers by voice, which protects you and your customers. Orders are pay-at-pickup, or we can send a secure payment link by text where supported.
My menu has weird names and combos. Will it understand?
That's exactly what setup is for. We sync your menu from your POS, then tune it to how your regulars actually talk: "large plain," "pie," "combo #3," half-and-half toppings, "well done." You review everything before going live, and it gets sharper from your real calls.
What if I don't trust it to send orders straight to my kitchen?
You don't have to. Start in draft mode: every order the AI takes shows up for your staff to approve, edit, or reject with one tap before it goes to the kitchen. Most restaurants switch on auto-submit within a couple of weeks, once they've seen the accuracy for themselves.
How long does setup take?
About a week. You share your menu (or connect your POS), we configure and test with recorded practice calls, your staff makes a few test orders, and then we go live, usually starting in overflow mode so the AI only picks up when your team can't.
Can I turn it off whenever I want?
Instantly. There's a kill switch in your dashboard that routes every call back to your staff, and plans are month-to-month with no long-term contract and no cancellation fee.
Does it handle delivery orders?
Pickup orders first, because that's where accuracy matters most and where most missed-call revenue is. Delivery support (with address validation and delivery-zone rules) is on the roadmap and rolls out to existing customers first.
Get started
Let's make sure your next rush answers every call
Tell me a little about your restaurant and I'll personally reach out within one business day, usually the same day.
Prefer to talk to me?
I'm Matt. I build, set up, and monitor Cinato myself. No sales team, no call center. Call or text and you get me.
Proudly serving Central New Jersey