Edinburgh fills twice a year. Your phone shouldn't ring out either time.

Edinburgh runs two restaurants in one building: the August one, where the Festival quadruples the city and every table from the Old Town to Stockbridge is fought over, and the rest-of-the-year one, where locals reclaim Leith and a quiet Tuesday matters. The phone is a different problem in each — and unanswered in both.

Book a pilot See how it works

Edinburgh's Old Town skyline in golden haze — clock tower and monument spires

The missed-call problem, Edinburgh-style

A ringing phone during service is a booking walking out.

In Festival season the calls come faster than any human can take them, in every accent a fringe show can import, at hours that make no sense. In November they're sparse but precious: a fiftieth birthday, an office Christmas booking, a food tourist planning around one dinner. Missing the August flood costs volume; missing the November call costs the whole night.

Vox answers both seasons the same way — instantly, warmly, with the diary open. It books what the room can truly take, hands anything delicate to your team, and keeps a transcript of every call. Running live in Australia today, and now taking Edinburgh pilot venues.

A bar mid-service, glassware and spirits lit under filament bulbs

During a Edinburgh service

Where the phone loses you money — and what answering it changes.

Fringe week, phone on fire

Forty calls an hour, half of them for tonight. Vox answers all of them at once, fills the diary to what the kitchen can survive, and politely lands the overflow on other nights.

The one-dinner tourist

A caller planning a trip around a single booking, three time zones away, ringing at 3am your time. Vox is awake, the diary is open, and the table is confirmed before they lose their nerve.

January Tuesday, skeleton crew

Two staff on, one delivery arriving, phone rings. It's a party of twelve for Burns Night. Vox takes every detail down properly — the kind of booking a rushed scribble on a pad gets wrong.

Hogmanay, everyone's one night

The city sells out and every caller is carrying the pressure of their single night of the year. Vox books exactly what exists, waitlists the rest honestly, and never promises a table that midnight can't hold.

The AI under the hood

Tuned for Edinburgh. A person the moment it matters.

One system, seasonally stress-tested: recognition that copes with a Festival's worth of accents, a diary connection that tells the truth under pressure, and an exit to a human that is never more than a sentence away — Edinburgh's configuration.

Peak-proof honesty

Demand never changes what the diary says. In August that discipline is the difference between a full room and an oversold one.

A world of accents

Festival callers arrive from everywhere. The listening layer is built for variety and trained further by every Edinburgh pilot call.

Knows both towns

Old Town or New Town, Leith or Morningside — place names land correctly in the notes, so staff know exactly which caller is which.

Rules before cleverness

Sensitive calls go to people. Data stays within UK GDPR. The clever part is knowing where cleverness should stop.

Across Edinburgh

The neighbourhoods venues call from.

Old Town
New Town
Stockbridge
Leith
Bruntsfield
Morningside
Tollcross
Portobello
Grassmarket

Not on the list? The pilot programme isn't drawn by postcode — a venue anywhere in the UK works exactly the same way.

We used to lose tables every Friday night just because nobody could reach the phone. Bella picks up every single call — and the bookings just appear on our screen. It paid for itself in the first week.

Natalia Owner · Natalia's Bistro, Sydney, Australia

Edinburgh questions

Answered plainly.

Can it survive August?

August is the case it's built for. A machine host answers every concurrent call without queueing, and the diary check stops festival demand from over-selling your room. The crush becomes bookings instead of noise.

Callers from overseas, odd hours — handled?

Yes. Vox answers at any hour, which for a tourist city is half the value: booking calls arrive from time zones your staff will never overlap with.

Do you understand Scottish accents?

The model is tuned per market and improves on real pilot calls — Scottish voices included, not as an afterthought. Early pilot venues shape exactly this.

What if a call needs a human — a complaint, say?

Vox stops and hands over, by rule rather than judgement call. It also flags the conversation so whoever picks it up has the context in front of them.

Is our data staying under UK rules?

Call data is handled under UK GDPR as its own regime, processed to complete bookings and reviewable by your venue. We treat the UK's rules as the rules, full stop.

Elsewhere in the UK