Mazcina Resto-Bar: how a Darlinghurst restaurant stopped missing calls

At a glance: Mazcina Resto-Bar, a share-plates and cocktail bar in Darlinghurst, Sydney, uses BitePerk’s VoxTable and VoxOrder so its phone is answered on every ring. Bella, the AI phone host, takes table bookings and takeaway orders and puts them straight on the team’s screen, including in the middle of a busy service. In the owners’ words, Bella “picks up the calls we used to miss.”

The challenge: the phone rings when nobody can reach it

Mazcina is a neighbourhood venue with a small, hands-on team. The kitchen is busy, the bar is making cocktails and plates are going out to tables. That is exactly when the phone starts ringing: people wanting a table tonight, a group asking about the weekend, a local calling in a pickup order on the way home.

In a room like this there is no spare person to stand by the phone. Whoever answers has to put down a tray, step away from the bar or leave a guest mid-conversation. More often the call simply rings out.

A missed call at a restaurant is rarely a caller who waits and tries again. It is a table that gets booked somewhere else down the street, or a takeaway order that goes to the next venue on the list. For a small venue those calls add up quickly, and nobody knows how many there were, because a call nobody answered leaves no record.

The solution: VoxTable and VoxOrder, answered by Bella

Mazcina’s owners set up two products from the BitePerk Vox family, both answered by the same voice: Bella, an AI phone host with a warm Australian voice.

• VoxTable handles bookings. Bella answers, takes the name, party size, date and time, and puts the booking in the diary. Changes and questions are handled in the same call.
• VoxOrder handles takeaway and pickup. Bella reads the menu the way the staff would, including substitutions, and sends the order through as a clean ticket with the caller’s name and pickup details.
• People still handle anything unusual. When a request is outside what Bella should decide, such as a special event or a complicated dietary question, she takes the details and flags the team to call back. She doesn’t guess.

Nothing changed for guests. They ring the number they already know. Calls are forwarded to Bella, so there was no new number to print and no app to download.

How it runs day to day

For the team on the floor, the change is mostly what they no longer have to do. The phone doesn’t pull anyone away from a table. Bookings don’t have to be written on a notepad at the bar and typed up later. Takeaway orders aren’t taken over the noise of service and then puzzled over in the kitchen.

Instead, the work arrives already done:

1. A guest calls. Bella answers on the first ring, whether the room is full or quiet.
2. The request is captured properly. A booking goes into the diary, or a takeaway order becomes a clean ticket.
3. It lands on screen. The team sees the booking or the order with the details they need, and gets on with service.
4. Anything tricky becomes a callback. Those calls are flagged with the caller’s details, so the team decides how to handle them when they have a moment.

The result: the calls they used to miss now get answered

The clearest way to describe the change is in the owners’ own words:

“Bella picks up the calls we used to miss. Bookings and takeaway orders just land on our screen.”

— Camilo & Mauro, owners, Mazcina Resto-Bar, Darlinghurst

What that means in practice:

• No more calls ringing out during service. The busiest part of the night is no longer when the venue is hardest to reach.
• Bookings and orders arrive already captured. Details are captured on the call, so there is less to re-type and less chance of a misheard order.
• The team stays with the guests in the room. Staff time goes to hospitality, not to the handset behind the bar.
• Takeaway is covered by the same line. Mazcina didn’t need one tool for bookings and another for phone orders; one host handles both.

We will add measured results to this page as Mazcina’s call history builds up: calls answered, bookings taken and orders placed, each with the date range it covers. We only publish figures we can stand behind.

Why this works for venues like Mazcina

Mazcina’s setup is a good fit for many Sydney restaurants and bars. It works for venues that share three things:

• A small team with no one spare for the phone. The fewer hands there are, the more one missed call costs. There’s more on this in what missed calls cost your restaurant.
• Both bookings and takeaway coming through one number. VoxTable and VoxOrder share the same host, so one line covers both kinds of call.
• Peak calls that line up with peak service. Guests ring when they’re planning dinner, which is when you’re serving it. An AI host that always answers fits that timing.

If that sounds like your venue, have a look at how Vox works for restaurants and takeaway venues, or read our guide to AI phone answering for Sydney restaurants.

Hear Bella on a real call

The quickest way to judge whether this fits your venue is to hear it. Book a demo and we’ll put Bella on a live call with your kind of booking or takeaway order. You’ll see exactly what lands on your screen.