How Napoli Kitchen Automated 280 Reservations Per Month and Reclaimed 2 Hours a Day

The Challenge

Gina Moretti opened Napoli Kitchen in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood seven years ago with 52 seats, a wood-fired oven, and a Sunday gravy recipe passed down from her grandmother. The restaurant earned a loyal following and a reputation for its handmade pasta, but managing reservation volume and guest inquiries had become a persistent operational drain.

By 2025, Napoli Kitchen's website was receiving 2,200 monthly visits — primarily from Google searches for "Italian restaurant Wicker Park" and from Instagram followers checking hours and menus. Those visitors generated a steady stream of questions, most of which arrived through a combination of the website contact form, Google Messages, and Instagram DMs. Gina estimated her front-of-house team was collectively spending two hours per day answering questions that could be answered by anyone who had read the website menu.

The questions were relentless and repetitive: "Do you have gluten-free pasta?" "Can I bring my dog to the patio?" "Do you take walk-ins on Friday night?" "What's the corkage fee?" "Is there parking nearby?" "Can you accommodate a nut allergy?" "Do you have a private room for 20 people?" On weekend afternoons before a dinner service, when the host stand was already managing a full floor, these digital inquiries competed directly with in-person guests for staff attention.

Reservation management was the most acute problem. Napoli Kitchen did not use OpenTable or Resy — Gina had avoided the per-cover fees. Reservations were handled by phone and email, which meant a guest who wanted to book a table for a birthday dinner at 9pm on a Thursday was getting a response the following morning, if they remembered to check their email. Many simply called a nearby restaurant instead.

Why Envoy

Gina evaluated OpenTable's messaging feature and a standalone chatbot platform before settling on Envoy. The decision came down to training quality. OpenTable's automated responses were limited to hours and reservation confirmations. The standalone chatbot required her to manually build a Q&A database over several days. Envoy trained on her existing website — the full menu including allergens and dietary tags, the FAQ page, the private dining page, and the "About" section — in under four minutes.

She added 18 manual entries to handle scenarios not covered on the website: the corkage fee ($20 per bottle), the patio dog policy (leashed dogs welcome at outdoor tables only), private room pricing for parties of 15-30 (minimum $1,200 food and beverage), and the parking situation (city garage two blocks north, street parking after 6pm on Tuesdays through Thursdays). She also configured the chatbot to collect party size, date, time preference, and phone number for any visitor requesting a reservation, feeding those details into a simple spreadsheet she reviewed each morning.

Critically, Envoy handled the reservation intake without committing to a specific table. It confirmed the request had been received, set the expectation that the team would call to confirm within two hours during business hours, and asked if the guest had any dietary restrictions or a special occasion. This gave Gina the reservation data she needed while maintaining control over table management without a reservation software subscription.

The Results

In the first month post-deployment, Envoy handled 1,340 chat sessions on the Napoli Kitchen website. Of those, 280 were reservation requests that came through fully formed — party size, date, time, phone number, and dietary notes pre-collected. An additional 512 conversations were menu or policy questions answered without any staff involvement at 92% accuracy.

The after-hours coverage was immediately transformative. Before Envoy, a family planning a birthday dinner who visited the website at 9pm on a Tuesday would have no way to submit a reservation request until they either called during business hours or sent an email that sat unanswered overnight. Now those visitors get an immediate, warm response that confirms their request and sets expectations. Gina found that 34% more Google reviews mentioned "fast response" or "easy to book" in the 60 days after deployment compared to the 60 days prior.

The staff time savings were substantial in a business where labor efficiency is the difference between profitability and loss. Freeing nearly two hours per day from repetitive digital communication allowed Gina's host to focus on in-person guest experience — greeting walk-ins, managing waitlists, and upselling larger tables to parties who might otherwise have been turned away.

At an average check of $47 per cover and an average party size of 3.1 people, each additional reservation secured via Envoy represents approximately $146 in revenue. The 120 incremental reservations captured in the first month that would otherwise have been missed after hours represents roughly $17,500 in additional monthly revenue at full conversion — with actual realized revenue (accounting for no-shows and rescheduling) estimated by Gina at $11,200 for the first full month.

In Their Own Words

"My host was spending half her shift before dinner service answering Instagram DMs about whether we have vegan options and if dogs are allowed on the patio. Now Envoy handles all of that instantly. But the real win is the reservations — I had no idea how many people were visiting our website late at night wanting to book a table and just giving up because no one was there to respond. We've had guests come in and tell us they almost went somewhere else but our website chat answered their question right away. That's a guest I never would have had."

— Gina Moretti, Owner, Napoli Kitchen

Try It Yourself

Napoli Kitchen used Envoy to handle reservations and menu questions automatically. Envoy is an AI chatbot for restaurants.

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Key Takeaways

• Napoli Kitchen was losing an estimated 40% of after-hours reservation requests to no-response; Envoy captured every digital inquiry regardless of time, adding 120 incremental reservations in the first month.
• Staff time spent on digital inquiries dropped from 2+ hours per day to 28 minutes — a 78% reduction that was redirected to in-person guest service during the high-stakes dinner service window.
• 92% of menu and policy questions were answered accurately by the AI with no staff involvement, covering dietary restrictions, parking, corkage, patio policy, and private dining without a single manual lookup.
• Reviews mentioning fast response or easy booking increased 367% in the first 60 days, contributing to a measurable improvement in Napoli Kitchen's Google rating and online reputation.