Questions to ask a restaurant AI vendor before you sign

Take these 35 questions into any restaurant AI demo, whether the tool answers the phone, takes drive-thru orders, runs a kiosk or builds schedules. They fall into five groups: your data, your POS, what happens when the AI fails, the full price, and how you leave. Ask for every answer in writing.

Our restaurant voice AI comparison covers a different step: a shared menu test you run on each vendor's phone agent. Use that test for the call itself and this list for the contract and setup around it. Print the list, cross out what does not apply, and bring the same copy to every demo.

What should you ask about your data?

1. What do you record: call audio, transcripts, order data, guest phone numbers? How long do you keep each?
2. Do you use our calls or orders to train your AI models? Can we opt out, and are those models shared with other customers?
3. Does the AI tell guests they are talking to a machine and that the call is recorded? Can we change that wording?
4. Does anyone outside our restaurant listen to calls or key in orders, including contractors in other countries?
5. Which other companies handle our data for you, and where?
6. How do you remove old test accounts, and how can someone report a security flaw to you?
7. Can we export recordings, transcripts and order logs at any time, and in what format?

Recording rules differ by state. California's Penal Code section 632, for example, bars recording a confidential call without the consent of all parties. Ask a lawyer what your greeting needs to say, and check that the vendor lets you set it. Questions 4 and 6 come from real cases in our review of public restaurant AI setbacks.

What should you ask about your POS?

1. Is our POS on your list, and our setup of it? Do you connect directly or through a middle service?
2. Does an order arrive in the POS as a normal ticket, on a separate tablet, or as a message to staff?
3. Where does the AI read our menu from, and how soon does a price change or a sold-out item reach it?
4. Who maps required choices, modifiers and combos, and who fixes a wrong mapping?
5. Does the AI take card payments? If so, how, and who holds the card data?
6. What POS permissions do you need, and who on our side grants them?
7. What happens to an order if the POS or internet is down?

On payments, the card industry's PCI DSS standard applies to every business that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data, merchants and service providers included. Ask the vendor for proof that its payment path meets it.

On permissions, Maple's Toast page gives one example: Toast needs the Manage integrations permission before anyone can add a partner integration.

What should you ask about fallback?

1. How does a guest reach a person, and how long does it take?
2. What happens when nobody on staff picks up the transfer?
3. Can a manager switch the AI off at one store in one step, and switch it back on?
4. What does the AI do with a huge or silly order, such as 50 drinks or an item we do not sell?
5. How do you count a completed order? Do you report orders staff had to fix as a separate number?
6. Who at your company answers during our Friday dinner rush, and how do we reach them?
7. How do we find out about an outage, and what do guests hear while it lasts?

Watch the answers to questions 3 and 5 most closely. A one-step off switch lets the crew take back the lane or counter mid-rush, and a separate count of fixed orders shows how much work the AI leaves for staff. Maple's drive-thru unit has a one-press switch that returns the lane to the crew, and its kiosk can be turned off with one tap. For the phone, our phone handoff checklist sets out who owns each request staff receive.

What should you ask about price?

1. What is the full monthly cost per store, including setup, hardware, integrations, texts and payment fees?
2. Do you charge per minute, per call or per order? Is there a cap, and what happens above it?
3. What is the price difference between monthly and yearly billing, and what does yearly billing commit us to?
4. What does a second or third store cost?
5. How much can the price rise at renewal?
6. Which onboarding, training and support are included, and which cost extra?
7. Is any part of the price tied to results you report, and how is that result counted?

Compare quotes on the same billing term and store count. Maple prints its phone plans on its pricing page: Voice at $150 a month billed monthly or $85 billed yearly, and Pro, which adds ordering and reservations, at $350 or $220. The same page says there are no per-minute fees. Maple's drive-thru unit and kiosk are in early access and priced per unit with no public price.

What should you ask about leaving?

1. How long is the term, does it renew on its own, and how much notice ends it?
2. What does it cost to end early, per store?
3. Who controls the phone number guests dial, and can we take it with us?
4. Which data do we get back when we leave, in what format, and for how long after?
5. Do you delete our data afterward, and does deletion reach models trained on it?
6. What happens if you drop a feature or an integration we rely on?
7. Can we pause a store during a remodel or a seasonal close?

The phone number deserves its own check before you sign anything. Our guide to switching answering services separates forwarding calls from moving the number, and lists what to record before a change.

Which answers should make you pause?

Group	Pause if the answer is	What to ask for next
Data	No written retention period, or no way to export	The data terms in the contract itself
POS	Orders arrive as messages staff retype	A test order on your own POS, compared line by line with the ticket
Fallback	No one-step off switch, or no separate count of orders staff fixed	A demo of the switch and a sample report
Price	A monthly figure with setup, usage or payment fees left out	A written quote for your store count and billing term
Exit	The vendor holds your phone number and gives no transfer terms	The number transfer terms in writing

Then run the shared menu test from the comparison guide on each vendor that is left. If the phone is your first project, the Maple phone ordering page sets out a trial from call to kitchen that you can hold to these same questions.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted question list combines a state statute, the PCI Security Standards Council's description of PCI DSS and Maple's published product pages with original questions drawn from public restaurant AI cases. It is not legal advice, does not report a test of any vendor, and does not promise any result.