When hundreds of guests are trying to reach you every day and no one can pick up the phone, you're not just missing calls. You're missing the experience before it even starts.
The Buttermilk Ranch isn't your typical brunch spot. Chef-partner Alyssa Gangeri built the Nashville restaurant as a full-scale bakery, bar and breakfast destination, where every croissant is rolled by hand with high-end New Zealand butter and the pastry case is topped by an eight-foot chandelier. Five years in, the restaurant on 12 South sees 600 to 700 guests a day, not counting the front counter.
That kind of demand is a good problem. But it creates a very specific operational one: the phone never stops ringing and there's no one free to answer it.
"We're a very loud restaurant, a very busy restaurant and I couldn't get my staff to answer the phone," Gangeri says. "People were entering the building already having a bad experience because they couldn't get someone on the phone when they needed it."
The volume problem no one talks about
Yelp drives more than 100,000 calls to restaurants every day on average,¹ and on peak holidays, that volume can triple.² For a high-traffic restaurant like Buttermilk Ranch, the calls aren't complex. Most people want to join the waitlist, check hours, or ask about holiday schedules. But when the host stand is managing hundreds of walk-ins and an online waitlist simultaneously, even simple calls go unanswered.
Gangeri estimated her team was missing hundreds of calls a day. Each one was a lost opportunity to create the guest experience her brand is built on.
"I'm not in the business to miss opportunities," she says.
She considered the obvious fix: hiring someone to sit in an office and answer phones full time. But the Buttermilk Ranch is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Calls come in well after close. Covering that window would require two full-time employees, 80 hours a week of labor dedicated solely to the phone. For a restaurant already managing razor-thin margins, the math didn't work.
A phone that never misses
Gangeri brought on Yelp Host, an AI-powered phone assistant that integrates directly with Yelp Guest Manager, which the restaurant relies on for managing its waitlist. The system picks up every call, handles routine questions and adds callers directly to the waitlist, giving them their position and estimated wait time on the spot.
The team didn't just flip a switch. They spent time building out the system, testing calls, listening to transcripts and adjusting the information they fed it. They named their AI host Michael, after a beloved former manager, chose a male voice with an energetic, easygoing tone and made sure he introduces himself as an AI host on every call.
"We wanted that experience of what we were giving in-house to also be happening on Yelp Host," Gangeri says. "We chose very specifically on the tone and naming to exude that experience through the phone."
What 7,500 captured calls actually looks like
Since launching Yelp Host in November 2025, Buttermilk Ranch has captured more than 7,500 calls from guests trying to join the waitlist or get a table. Before that, every one of those calls was a miss.
The results go beyond volume:
- 80 hours of labor saved per week -- the equivalent of two full time phone-dedicated employees
- Zero missed calls since activation, with every interaction logged and categorized
- A new catering revenue stream opened up because prospective catering clients can now actually reach someone, with Yelp Host routing them to the right manager or website form
- Staff freed from the phone entirely, allowing hosts to focus on the guests standing in front of them
"Unplugging that phone was probably the best day of their life," Gangeri says of her front-of-house team. "There's nothing more frustrating than getting to a host stand after you've been waiting and the host picks up a phone call and is stuck on it."
The unexpected ripple effect
Something Gangeri didn't anticipate: guests started evangelizing the system to each other. She's overheard customers in Nashville explaining the "secret" to getting into Buttermilk Ranch. "I just called and the Yelp Host put me on the waitlist and told me an hour and a half. So I left in an hour and 15 minutes, walked up and sat down."
"It's almost like a secret, but not," Gangeri says. "To hear other customers educate other people to the point where they say, 'I'll let you in on the secret,' that's been very nice."
The system also required less ongoing management than she expected. One manager reviews calls at the end of each day as part of his closing checklist. The dashboard organizes every call by topic, making it easy to spot anything that needs a callback. When callers ask for a human, Michael directs them to leave contact info or visit the restaurant directly, setting clear expectations about response time.
The real pitch
Gangeri doesn't frame Yelp Host as making her job easier. She frames it as making her restaurant more efficient without compromising on the things that matter.
"Yelp Host will answer the phone the same way every single time. You can't guarantee that about a person," she says. "My people are better fitted to be on the floor interacting with guests and giving a great experience instead of being stuck in an office trying to answer a phone."
For operators weighing the decision, her take is direct: "Labor cost is your biggest killer. If you can save 80 hours a week and take those finances and put them somewhere else, maybe a higher quality ingredient, maybe raising wages for other employees, it's an easy decision."
The Buttermilk Ranch is a small-batch bakery and restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, serving breakfast, brunch and lunch. The restaurant has used Yelp Guest Manager for more than three years and Yelp Host since November 2025.
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx2ss6cBWZY
Citations:
- Internal Yelp Data 2026. Based on the average daily call volume initiated by users selecting the “call” feature within the Yelp app, January–April 2026.
- Yelp Internal Data, based on the average daily call volume of Host customers from November 2025 to March 2026.
