How Nikki Japanese Restaurant stopped losing callers on its busiest days

Restaurant: Nikki Japanese Restaurant
Location: Taylorsville, NC
POS: Clover

Results:

$103,000

Phone sales a year

24x

Phone sales for every dollar of Maple

100%

Calls finished by Maple

Japanese · Taylorsville, NC · Clover

“Especially on our very busiest days... we cannot pick up the phone and that causes us to... lose a customer.”Sam, Nikki Japanese RestaurantWith Maple: every call answered, the busiest days included, with none passed to staff.

A small family restaurant where the same people served the room and the phone

Nikki Japanese Restaurant serves Japanese food, from teriyaki to fried rice, in Taylorsville, North Carolina. It has been open three or four years; before that, Sam’s family ran a donut shop. Sam calls himself “a city boy” from Philadelphia, and says of Taylorsville, “It is a lot of nice, good people, uh, in that area.”

Like a lot of small restaurants, Nikki runs with a small team, and the same people who serve the dining room answer the phone. “We’re short on staff,” Sam told Maple in August, “and we don’t wanna overburn our... helper in regards of servicing the customers that is dining in at the same time picking up the phone to take an order.”

On the busiest days something had to give, and it was the phone. Every call nobody could pick up was a customer who ordered somewhere else.

Before Maple

Short on staffThe same people served the room and the phone

Missed callsOn the busiest days, callers went elsewhere

One helper, two jobsServing dine-in guests while picking up the phone to take an order.

Lost customersEvery unanswered call was an order that went somewhere else.

With Maple

$103,000In phone orders a year

4,500Phone orders a year

Every callAnswered, with no transfer to staff

Large orders paid upfrontOrders of $50 or more are paid on the call.

Orders straight to CloverEach one prints in the kitchen like a counter order.

Sold on the first call

Sam heard Maple’s demo on that first call and said, “I’m getting goosebumps.” A few minutes later: “I’m sold.” He was already thinking past his own restaurant. Relatives run restaurants where, he said, “it’s constantly ringing, and I, I know that with this service, that, that would help them tremendously.” He wanted to try Maple at Nikki first.

He set one rule at setup: orders of $50 or more are paid over the phone. Every order goes into Clover and prints in the kitchen like one taken at the counter.

Every call answered, about $103,000 a year in phone orders

At its pace so far, Maple takes about 4,500 phone orders a year for Nikki, worth about $103,000, and it has answered every call itself without a transfer to staff. That is about 5 hours a week nobody at the counter spends on the phone.

Maple Pro costs $350 a month, so those phone orders come to about 24 times what Nikki pays for it. On the busiest days, the phone gets answered now.

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 Nikki’s recorded sales and setup calls with Maple in August 2026.

Restaurant: Nikki Japanese Restaurant
Location: Taylorsville, NC
POS: Clover