How Forsyth Seafood kept 43 years of call-in regulars and takes $132,000 a year with Maple

Seafood market and cafe · Winston-Salem, NC · Toast

“We do fish Fridays, so we’re busy from the time we open to the time we close.”Ashley Armstrong, Forsyth Seafood Market & CafeWith Maple: about 5,500 phone orders a year taken, and about 16 hours a week back for the team.

Two businesses under one roof, and customers who have always called in

Forsyth Seafood Market & Cafe is two businesses under one roof on North Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Winston-Salem. The market lays whole fish from North Carolina’s Outer Banks on ice tables and cuts it to order. Next door, a Southern seafood cafe of about 100 seats serves fried seafood plates with Southern sides. This is its 43rd year.

The phone has been part of Forsyth from the start. “Originally we only took call-ins when they first, uh, started with my mother and my father,” Ashley Armstrong told Maple in July, “and people just kind of, over the years since we’ve done that for so long, people, that’s what they want to do.”

About three quarters of the cafe’s business is takeout, and Thursday through Saturday are the busy days. Friday is the peak, with many of the same regulars ordering the same plate every week.

Maple answers the way the regulars expect

Ashley had one worry about handing the phone to software, and it was the regulars themselves. “My only hesitation,” she said, “is we have a lot of older customers that do call in.”

So Maple answers in plain conversation, takes the order the way a regular gives it, and sends it into Toast so it prints in the kitchen with the counter orders. When a caller asks for a person, Maple passes the call to staff.

About $132,000 a year in phone orders, and the regulars still call in

At its pace so far, Maple takes about 5,500 phone orders a year for Forsyth, worth about $132,000. The calls it answers save the team about 16 hours of phone time a week.

Maple Pro costs $350 a month, so those phone orders come to about 31 times what Forsyth pays for it. The regulars still call in, the way they have for 43 years.

Yearly figures are rounded and carry the restaurant’s pace on Maple so far over twelve months; they come from Maple’s call and order records and do not forecast future orders. The multiple divides those phone-order sales by Maple Pro at $350 a month; it is sales, not profit. Quotes come from Forsyth’s recorded sales call with Maple in July 2026.