Restaurant voicemail greetings: scripts for after hours, holidays and busy nights

A restaurant voicemail greeting should give the restaurant's name, say whether you are open right now, say when you open next, and tell the caller where to order or book instead. Then say whether anyone checks messages, and when. Put the hours first, keep the whole thing short, and set a separate after-hours greeting to play on a schedule.

This guide covers the recorded greeting a caller hears when nobody picks up. Scripts for staff who answer live are in our restaurant phone scripts. If you want software to answer while you are closed, our voice AI comparison gives a test to run on any vendor.

How many calls come when you are closed?

In Maple's restaurant phone audit, roughly 19% of calls in the published cohort arrived on a closed day, before opening or after closing. The audit says this measures timing only. It does not count unanswered calls, voicemail results or lost orders.

Your own count matters more. Pull two weeks of calls from your phone provider's call log, mark each one that came outside your hours, and note the hour. If most arrive in the first hour after closing, that is when your greeting does most of its work.

What should the greeting say?

Part	Example wording	What it does for the caller
Name and location	"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main."	Confirms they reached the right store
Open or closed	"We're closed right now."	Stops them waiting for a person
Next opening	"We open tomorrow at 11 a.m."	Gives a clock time they can plan around
Where to go instead	"You can order anytime at rosasonmain.com."	Gives them a way to finish the task
Messages	"Leave a message and we'll call back after 11."	Sets a callback time you can keep
Other lines	"For catering, call 555-0142."	Sends special requests to the person who handles them

Say a web address only if it is short and easy to spell aloud. Say phone numbers slowly, in groups, and say them twice.

What are some example greetings?

We wrote these for this guide. Swap in your own name, hours and web address, and keep the order of the parts.

After hours

"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main. We're closed right now. We open tomorrow at 11 a.m. and serve until 10 p.m. You can order anytime at rosasonmain.com. To leave a message, stay on the line, and we'll call you back after we open."

Closed between lunch and dinner

"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main. We're between services. The kitchen reopens at 5 p.m. for dinner. You can place a pickup order for tonight at rosasonmain.com. Please call back after 5, and we'll be glad to help."

Holiday closure

"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main. We're closed today for Thanksgiving. We reopen Friday at 11 a.m. with our regular hours. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us."

Busy during service

"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main. We're open, and our team is busy with guests right now. Please call back in a few minutes, or order online at rosasonmain.com. If you have a reservation question, leave your name and number and the host will call you back tonight."

Temporary closure

"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main. We're closed for repairs until Monday, June 8. Our Elm Street location is open at 12 Elm Street. We'll post updates at rosasonmain.com."

Mailbox not checked

"Thanks for calling Rosa's on Main. We don't check messages on this line. We're open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Please call back then, or order at rosasonmain.com."

How long should a voicemail greeting be?

Keep it short enough that the hours come before a caller gives up. Our examples run between 27 and 48 words. Put the open-or-closed line and the next opening time in the first two sentences, and leave out specials and slogans. Read your script aloud with a phone timer. If you get bored, cut a sentence.

How do you switch greetings on a schedule?

Business phone services such as Ooma Office let you set business hours and play a different greeting outside them. Two examples from the providers' own help pages:

• Ooma Office: the Virtual Receptionist greeting options page describes a Business Hours Menu greeting and an After Hours/Holiday Menu greeting. A greeting can be text-to-speech of up to 150 words, or a recorded .wav or .mp3 file of up to 5 MB. Ooma's schedule instructions let you set hours in 15-minute steps and add several time ranges in one day, which suits a restaurant that closes between lunch and dinner. On holidays in your list, the after-hours menu plays all day by default, and Pro Plus accounts can set separate holiday handling.
• Google Voice: the greeting help page lets you record up to 10 greetings and choose which one callers hear. It describes choosing the active greeting by hand. It does not describe a schedule, so someone has to switch the greeting at closing and at opening.

If your line has a single voicemail greeting and no schedule, record one that works at any hour. Leave out "we're closed right now" and give the full weekly hours instead.

Holidays need a date in the phone system and in every other place guests check. Our holiday hours checklist lists those places, and the guide to your number on Google and other listings covers the number guests see.

Should callers leave orders on voicemail?

We suggest not. A voicemail order has no read-back and no payment, and nobody may hear it until the next shift. Send callers to online ordering, or ask them to call back when you open. If you take messages, say what they are for, such as catering, lost items or event questions. Our catering calls guide lists what to collect from an event caller.

How do you test your greetings?

1. From an outside phone, call five minutes before closing and five minutes after. Check which greeting plays each time.
2. If you close between services, call during the break.
3. Call on a date in your holiday list, or add a test date for tomorrow and remove it after.
4. During a busy shift, let a test call ring with nobody answering. Note how many rings pass before voicemail and which greeting plays.
5. Leave a message. Check who receives it, where, and how quickly they see it.
6. Ask your provider how many messages the mailbox holds and what callers hear when it is full.
7. Compare the hours in the greeting with Google, your website and your delivery apps.
8. Re-record the greeting the same day your hours change.

When does an answering service fit better than voicemail?

A greeting answers "are you open?" and points callers to other channels. When callers want to order or book after hours, an AI answering service that takes orders and bookings can handle the call. Maple Voice answers calls 24/7 with hours and FAQ answers and automated call transfer, for $150 a month billed monthly or $85 a month billed annually. Pro, at $350 a month billed monthly or $220 a month billed annually, adds phone orders into supported POS systems and reservations. You can hear sample calls before you decide, and our call forwarding checklist covers how to route the line and test it.

Published by Maple, which sells AI phone answering for restaurants. This AI-assisted guide combines phone providers' help pages and Maple's published phone audit with original example greetings, a message table and a test list. The greetings are our own examples, and the restaurant in them is made up. It does not report a test of any phone service.