Cafe AI assistant for calls, chat and WhatsApp

It's ten past eight. There's a queue to the door, the milk jug is in your hand, and the phone behind the till is ringing for the third time in five minutes. It'll be someone asking whether you're open on the bank holiday, or whether they can bring the dog in, or whether there's a table for six at eleven. None of these takes long. Every one of them takes you away from the person standing in front of you.

A cafe AI assistant picks up those questions so you don't have to. Klugon answers your phone, your website chat and your WhatsApp from information you give it: your hours, your menu, your house rules about dogs, laptops and buggies, and what you do for afternoon teas and group bookings. When a question needs a person, such as a serious allergy, a complaint, or a supplier asking about an invoice, it flags the conversation for your team instead of guessing.

This page is written for independent cafes, coffee shops, tea rooms, garden-centre cafes and the cafe corner of a farm shop. It covers what customers actually ask, where an assistant helps and where it doesn't, how to set it up in an afternoon off, what it costs, and the food rules you still own. It's part of our wider guide for restaurants and food businesses.

What customers ask a cafe, and when they ask it

Cafes don't get the long reservation calls that a restaurant does. They get short questions, lots of them, at the worst possible times.

The questions that come in every week

If you kept a notepad by the phone for a fortnight, it would probably fill up with variations on these:

Are you open? Today, this Sunday, on Boxing Day, during the school holidays, after the storm.
What time does the kitchen stop? Many cafes stop hot food an hour before closing. Customers don't know that, and they ring to check.
Can I bring my dog? Inside, or only on the terrace? Is there a water bowl?
Do you do oat milk, gluten-free bread, vegan cake? Usually asked by someone deciding where to meet friends.
Is there parking, step-free access, a baby-changing table, room for a pram?
Can we book a table? Most cafes are walk-in only, some take bookings at quiet times, some only for groups. Whatever your rule is, customers ask.
Do you do afternoon tea? How much, how far ahead to book, can it be gluten-free, can you add a glass of fizz?
Can I hire the space? Baby showers, book clubs, wakes, small birthday parties, a knitting group on Tuesday evenings.
Can I work from there? Wi-fi, plug sockets, whether you mind laptops at lunchtime.
Did someone hand in a scarf? Lost property calls are short, but they always come when you're busy.
Are you hiring? Saturday-job enquiries spike before the summer and at Christmas.

Then there are the calls from suppliers, delivery drivers who can't find the back door, and the occasional sales call about card machines.

Your busy hours, in words rather than numbers

Most cafes run on a predictable rhythm, even if no two cafes have the same one.

The early commuter window, roughly from opening until just after nine, is all takeaway cups and speed. Nobody on the counter can answer a phone call well then. The mid-morning lull is when the phone is easiest to pick up, and when people planning lunch or a meet-up tend to ring. Lunch, from about twelve until two, is the second crush. In a town-centre cafe it's office workers; in a village cafe it's walkers, retirees and mums after the school run. The mid-afternoon brings school pick-up trade and, in places that do them, afternoon teas.

Weekends are different again. Saturday and Sunday brunch is when the phone rings most with "have you got a table for five in twenty minutes?", which is exactly when no one can check.

Klugon's analytics page shows your conversations by hour and by weekday once it's running, so after a few weeks you'll see your real pattern rather than a guess.

Seasons and one-off spikes

Cafe trade swings with the calendar, and so do the questions.

Summer and school holidays. Seaside, countryside and garden-centre cafes see families and walkers. Questions turn to outside seating, dogs, high chairs and ice cream.
Bank holidays. "Are you open Monday?" is the most common call on the Friday before.
Mother's Day. Afternoon tea enquiries start weeks ahead, and so do the disappointed calls when you're full.
Christmas. Festive menus, office get-togethers, Christmas Eve hours, and whether you're open between Christmas and New Year.
Bad weather. Snow, flooding and storms bring "are you open today?" calls first thing.
Local events. A market, a carnival, a race, a match. If you change your hours for it, people will ring to check.

An assistant doesn't get flustered by any of this. It needs to be told about the change, once, and then it answers everyone the same way.

What a cafe AI assistant can handle for you

Here's where Klugon earns its keep in a cafe, and how each job works in practice.

Opening hours, closures and special days

You set your opening hours and timezone in Klugon, and you can add closed dates. The assistant answers "are you open?" from that. For one-off changes, such as closing early on Christmas Eve or opening late on a bank holiday, add a line to your knowledge base: "On Monday 25 May we open 9am to 3pm. The kitchen stops at 2pm." When the day has passed, delete it.

This sounds trivial. It's the single most common question a cafe gets, and getting a wrong answer from a two-year-old listing is how people end up standing outside a locked door.

Add your menu, your specials board routine and your house rules to the knowledge base. You can paste text, upload a PDF or Word file, or point Klugon at a page of your website. Klugon can also scan your homepage and up to seven key pages of your site in one go.

Two practical points from setting this up in food businesses:

Designed menus are often images. If your menu PDF is a flattened image from a design app, Klugon can't read it, because scanned or image-only PDFs aren't processed. Paste the text in instead, or export a text PDF.
Write down what staff "just know". "Dogs welcome inside except at weekend brunch" or "We don't split bills for groups over eight" lives in your head, not on the menu. The assistant only knows what you tell it.

If you sell cakes, beans or gift cards and want the assistant to talk about them by name and price, you can also add them as products. The products list is entered by hand, with a picture and a price, and the assistant can search it in chat and on the phone and suggest related products.

Bookings, where you take them

A lot of cafes don't take bookings at all, and that's fine: the assistant simply says so, politely, and tells people how busy you tend to be at the time they mention, if you've written that down.

Where you do take bookings, for example afternoon tea, a weekday group, or the back room, Klugon's built-in booking works from your opening hours, the length of each service and the staff assigned to it. You set a slot interval, how much notice you need, how far ahead people can book and any closed dates. The assistant checks a free slot and books it, and the customer gets a booking reference in the same conversation.

Be clear about one limitation: this is appointment booking, not a table-plan system. It doesn't know you have six two-tops and a sofa. It checks conflicts per service and staff member, so it suits "one afternoon tea sitting at 2pm and another at 3.30pm" better than a full-floor table plan. If your afternoon tea is a fixed number of sittings a day, set it up as a service with the right length. If you need covers-based table management, keep the tool you have for that and let the assistant answer the questions around it. More on how booking works is on our AI appointment scheduler page.

There are no automatic reminders or confirmation emails. The confirmation is the reply in the conversation itself, so if you rely on reminder texts to keep afternoon-tea no-shows down, that stays your job.

Group enquiries and private hire

Private hire is where a cafe makes good money on a quiet evening, and where enquiries go missing because they come in at lunchtime.

Tell the assistant what you offer: the room, the number of people, the food packages, the minimum spend, the hours. It then collects the details you need, such as date, numbers, occasion, dietary needs and a name and phone number or email, and saves them as a lead. The lead appears on your leads page, where you can mark it contacted, converted or lost. On a voice or social plan at Business tier or above, the lead can also post to a Slack channel or trigger a Zapier step, so you see it on your phone. You then ring or email the customer yourself to agree terms.

Recruitment and supplier calls

You can tell the assistant what to say to job applicants ("We're hiring for Saturday staff. Email your CV to the address on our website or drop it in") and to suppliers ("For orders and invoices, please email accounts..."). It won't make decisions for you, but it stops these calls landing on the person on the coffee machine.

What it must hand over to a person

Some questions shouldn't be answered by software in a cafe, however good your notes are. Decide these before you switch anything on.

Allergies: answer from your list, then send them to staff

This is the one that matters most. Under UK food law there are 14 allergens that must be declared, listed in the Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance for food businesses: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soya, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, and tree nuts. The same guidance says businesses must make sure staff are trained on allergens.

Here's how we recommend setting up the assistant:

Upload or paste your allergen matrix, the same one your staff use, and keep it current when recipes or suppliers change.
Let the assistant answer general questions from it: "Which cakes don't contain nuts?" or "Is the soup vegan?"
Tell it, in your instructions, that anyone who mentions an allergy, coeliac disease or an intolerance must be told to speak to a member of staff before ordering, and that cross-contamination can't be ruled out in a small kitchen if that's true for you.
Turn on the handover skill, so a conversation that mentions a severe allergy is flagged for a person.

The assistant answers from your list. It doesn't know that today's bakery delivery came from a different supplier, or that the gluten-free bread was toasted in the same toaster. A trained person standing at your counter does. The final word on an allergy is always a conversation with your staff, and the assistant should say so.

Complaints and refunds

A customer who rings to say they found something in their sandwich, or that a member of staff was rude, wants a person. The assistant can apologise, take their details and flag the conversation so the "Needs a person" banner appears in your inbox. It can't give refunds or promise compensation, and you shouldn't ask it to.

Anything about staff, money or safety

Questions about wages, a staff member's shifts, cash handling, a break-in, or a health incident in the cafe go to the owner. Write a line telling the assistant to take a message for these and say a manager will be in touch.

How the handover works, exactly

When the assistant decides a conversation needs a person, it marks the conversation as escalated, logs it, and, if you've connected Slack or Zapier, sends a notification. Your inbox shows a "Needs a person" banner on that conversation.

What it doesn't do: it can't put a phone caller through to you. There is no live call transfer. On the phone, the assistant tells the caller someone will get back to them, captures their name and number, and ends the call. You ring back when you can. It also doesn't stop replying after a handover, so a customer who keeps typing will keep getting answers. Write your instructions so that the assistant tells people plainly that a person will pick this up.

On WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger you can reply to the customer yourself from the Klugon inbox, as long as you're inside Meta's 24-hour messaging window. Website chat and phone conversations can't be replied to from the inbox, so for those you call or email the customer.

Sample conversations

These are samples written to show how a conversation might run. The cafe is made up: Pennyfield Coffee House, an independent cafe on a market-town high street with a small back room and a dog-friendly terrace. They aren't recordings of real customers.

A phone call during the Saturday rush

Assistant: Hello, you've reached Pennyfield Coffee House. I'm the cafe's AI assistant. How can I help?

Caller: Hi, are you open tomorrow? And can we bring a dog?

Assistant: Yes, we're open tomorrow, Sunday, from 9am to 4pm, and the kitchen takes food orders until 3pm. Dogs are welcome on the terrace at any time and inside on weekdays. At weekend brunch we keep the inside dog-free, so tomorrow your dog would be welcome on the terrace. It's covered and has heaters.

Caller: OK. There'll be six of us around half eleven. Can I book?

Assistant: We don't take bookings for brunch at weekends; tables are first come, first served. Late morning on Sundays is usually our busiest time, so arriving before eleven gives you the best chance of a table for six. The terrace has two tables that seat six.

Caller: Fine. One of us can't have gluten.

Assistant: We have gluten-free bread and some gluten-free cakes, and they're marked on the menu. Our kitchen is small and also handles flour, so we can't promise there's no cross-contamination. Please tell the staff about the gluten requirement when you order, and they'll talk you through what's safe.

Caller: Great, thanks.

Assistant: You're welcome. See you tomorrow.

The call appears in the cafe's inbox afterwards, logged as a phone conversation with its length.

An afternoon tea enquiry on WhatsApp

Customer: Hi do you do afternoon tea for Mother's Day? 4 adults 2 kids

Assistant: Hello! Yes, we do afternoon tea on Mother's Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday, at two sittings: 1pm and 3pm. It's £24.50 per adult and £12 for children under 10. Would you like me to check a sitting for you?

Customer: Sunday 3pm please

Assistant: The 3pm sitting on Sunday is available. Can I take a name for the booking and a mobile number?

Customer: Claire Dobson 07700 900456

Assistant: Thank you, Claire. You're booked for afternoon tea on Sunday at 3pm for four adults and two children. Your booking reference is PFC-1186. Is anyone in your group vegan, gluten-free or allergic to anything?

Customer: my mum is coeliac

Assistant: Thank you for telling us. We can make a gluten-free afternoon tea, but our kitchen also uses flour, so please ring or speak to the team before your visit so they can explain how they prepare it. I've flagged this conversation so a member of staff sees the note about coeliac disease.

The owner sees the booking in Klugon's bookings list and the flagged conversation in the inbox. Because it's WhatsApp, the owner can reply on the same thread from the inbox: "Hi Claire, it's Jess, the owner. We'll prepare your mum's tea separately on clean boards. See you Sunday."

A private-hire question on the website chat

Visitor: Can we hire the back room for a baby shower?

Assistant: Yes, the back room seats up to 20 and is available for private hire on weekday evenings from 5.30pm, and on Sunday afternoons after 4pm. There's a minimum spend of £250 on food and drink, and you're welcome to bring decorations. What date are you thinking of?

Visitor: Sat 14 June afternoon?

Assistant: Saturdays are normal opening hours, so we don't usually close the back room then. I can pass your enquiry to the owner, who decides on exceptions. Could you give me your name, the number of guests and the best email or phone number to reach you?

Visitor: Priya, about 15, priya@example.com

Assistant: Thanks, Priya. I've passed your enquiry for about 15 guests on Saturday 14 June to the owner, who'll be in touch by email.

The enquiry appears on the leads page with Priya's details and the note "Baby shower, ~15, Sat 14 June afternoon, asked for exception".

Setting up your cafe AI assistant

Most of the work is writing down what your staff already know. Give yourself a quiet afternoon.

Before you start: collect these

Your opening hours for each day, and your kitchen cut-off.
Your menu as text, including what's vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free.
Your allergen matrix, exactly as your staff use it.
Your rules: dogs, laptops, prams, outside food, cake-cutting for birthdays, splitting bills.
Afternoon tea or group options, with prices, lengths and how far ahead people need to book.
Private-hire terms: capacity, minimum spend, deposits you take yourself, available times.
Accessibility and practical details: step-free access, toilets, parking, the nearest bus stop.
Your known closures for the next few months.

The setup checklist

Sign up and start the trial. The free trial lasts 7 days. A card is needed at sign-up and is charged when the trial ends unless you cancel. There's no free tier that serves customers.
Create your assistant. Give it a name and a greeting. We suggest saying it's an AI assistant in the greeting, because the default greeting doesn't, and customers appreciate knowing.
Add your hours, timezone and closed dates.
Build the knowledge base. Paste your menu and house rules, upload your allergen matrix and private-hire sheet, and let Klugon scan your website.
Add bookable services if you take bookings. For example "Afternoon tea, 90 minutes" or "Back room, 3 hours". Set the minimum notice and how far ahead people can book.
Add your links. The links library holds links the assistant can share in chat, such as your Google Maps listing, a menu PDF or your gift card shop.
Write your handover rules. Allergies, complaints, refunds, staff matters, press.
Test it. Ask it twenty questions you get every week. Try to catch it out. Fix the gaps in your notes.
Turn on your channels. Website chat is a paste; WhatsApp and Instagram need Meta setup; a phone number can be added once the trial ends.

Website chat: one script tag

Your website, whether it's on Squarespace, Wix, WordPress or something a nephew built, only needs a single script tag pasted before the closing body tag. You can set the widget colour to match your branding and choose which corner it sits in. There's no plugin to install. The details are on our AI chatbot for small business page.

The widget itself is text. To let a visitor talk to the assistant from their browser, link to your Klugon public page or embed it with the iframe option.

WhatsApp and Instagram

Many cafe customers would rather message than ring. To connect WhatsApp, you need a Meta app, a WhatsApp Business phone number ID and an access token from Meta's developer tools. That's a fiddly half-hour the first time. Instagram DMs need a professional Instagram account linked to a Facebook Page, plus Meta's app review for messaging permissions before the public can message the assistant. Our WhatsApp AI chatbot page walks through it.

If you only use the free WhatsApp Business app on the cafe phone today, check how Meta handles that number before you connect it. Klugon uses the WhatsApp Cloud API, which is a different route from the app, and the number you connect is your own Meta number.

Your public page and a QR code for the tables

Every Klugon business gets a public page at klugon.ai followed by your business name, showing your services, products and reviews, with chat and browser voice built in. You can print a QR code that points to it. Some cafes put it on table cards ("Questions about allergens, private hire or gift cards? Scan to ask") or in the window for when you're closed.

Your phone line

You don't have to change your number. Once the trial ends, Klugon can give you a dedicated number and you set your existing line to forward to it, all the time or, if your phone provider supports it, only when you're busy or don't answer. Each number is $9 a month. Number porting isn't offered. During the trial you can test the voice assistant from your browser.

The phone assistant answers in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese or Arabic, depending on the language you choose. That helps in tourist towns.

What it costs a cafe

Klugon prices three products separately in US dollars, and you only pay for the ones you use. Full detail is on the pricing page.

Product	Starter	Business	What a cafe uses it for
AI chatbot (website widget)	$49/mo, 100 conversations	$149/mo, 400 conversations	Website questions, private-hire enquiries
AI social agent (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger)	$79/mo, 300 conversations	$249/mo, 1,500 conversations	Message enquiries, afternoon tea bookings
AI voice agent (phone)	$99/mo, 1,000 minutes	$299/mo, 3,600 minutes	The ringing phone

Paying yearly takes 20% off. A conversation is one customer thread. A connected WhatsApp number adds $19 a month, and each phone number adds $9 a month.

A few plan details that matter to cafes:

Uploading PDFs and documents to the knowledge base is included on every voice and social plan, but on the website chatbot it needs Business. On chatbot Starter you can paste text instead.
Booking is included on the voice and social plans, and on chatbot Business and above.
Slack and Zapier notifications need a voice or social plan at Business tier or above.

A worked example

These numbers are assumptions to show the method. Use your own.

Say your cafe gets around 12 phone calls a day in the summer, and the average call takes two minutes. That's about 24 minutes of calls a day, or roughly 720 minutes over a 30-day month, well inside the voice Starter allowance of 1,000 minutes. The voice Starter plan costs $99 a month, plus $9 for the number.

Now the staff-time side. The National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026, according to GOV.UK. Twelve hours of calls a month is already about £150 of a counter assistant's paid time, before you count the queue that builds while they're on the phone. That's not the real cost, though. The real cost is the coffee order abandoned at the till during a call in the morning rush, and the private-hire enquiry that rang out at lunchtime and booked somewhere else.

If your phone is quiet and most questions come through Instagram and your website, start with the chatbot or social plan instead and leave voice until you need it.

Against a person or an answering service

A part-time receptionist doesn't make sense for most cafes; there isn't enough work for one, and the questions come at the moments everyone is busy. A traditional telephone answering service can take messages, but it usually can't tell a caller whether you have gluten-free scones today unless you brief it as carefully as you'd brief an assistant, and it doesn't cover WhatsApp or your website. Our explainer on what an AI receptionist is covers the trade-offs in more detail.

Food rules and data rules your cafe still owns

An assistant answers questions. It doesn't change who's responsible for the food or the data. These are the rules that touch the work it does.

Allergen information and Natasha's Law

The FSA's allergen guidance applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. For food that isn't prepacked, such as a slice of cake served on a plate or a toastie made to order, you must still provide allergen information. You can give it verbally, as long as a clearly visible written notice tells customers how to get it. The guidance says written information backed up by a conversation works best for customers.

For food you package on site before a customer selects it, such as sandwiches made in the morning and put in the chiller, or wrapped flapjacks by the till, the rules for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food apply. These are known as Natasha's Law. Since 1 October 2021, PPDS food must carry a label with the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with the 14 allergens emphasised. The FSA's introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS food sets out what counts as PPDS and what doesn't. Food packed after the customer orders it isn't PPDS.

None of this changes with an assistant. Your labels still go on your sandwiches, your notice still goes on the wall, and your staff still need to be trained. What the assistant gives you is a consistent first answer from your own matrix, plus a reminder to every customer with an allergy to talk to staff.

Food hygiene ratings

Customers do ask about hygiene ratings, especially for a new cafe. The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme gives a rating from 0 to 5 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the FSA's FHRS guidance for businesses explains how ratings are given and displayed. If you're happy for the assistant to mention your rating, add it to your notes, and update it after each inspection.

When the assistant takes a name and phone number for a private-hire enquiry, you're collecting personal data. The ICO's UK GDPR guidance and resources are the place to check your obligations as a small business. In Klugon:

The assistant records marketing consent only when the customer gives it explicitly, so a private-hire enquiry doesn't automatically put someone on your mailing list.
You can export leads, customers and conversations as CSV and delete individual records. Full erasure of an account is by email request.
Klugon is operated by a German company under the GDPR, and transfers to its US sub-processors are covered by standard contractual clauses, as set out in the privacy policy.
Klugon doesn't record calls.

How it compares with the tools cafes already use

Most cafes already run a card reader and till system, a Google Business Profile, an Instagram account and, sometimes, an online booking widget. Klugon doesn't replace any of those. Here's how it fits.

Your till and card reader

Your till system handles payment and, often, your product list. Klugon doesn't connect to it and doesn't take payment for cafe orders. Keep your till as it is. If you want the assistant to talk about specific cakes or retail items by name, add them to Klugon's products list by hand.

Google Business Profile

Your Google listing is where most people check your hours. Keep it accurate. Klugon answers the follow-up questions a listing can't, such as "can I bring a dog inside on a Saturday?", and it answers on the channels people use after they've found you: the phone, WhatsApp and your website.

Table booking platforms

If you take a lot of bookings and use a dedicated table booking platform, you might keep it for covers and use Klugon for questions, enquiries and phone overflow. If you're comparing platforms, we've written about OpenTable alternatives. For a cafe that takes only a handful of bookings a week, such as afternoon teas, Klugon's own booking is usually enough.

Instagram DMs and a shared phone

Many owners answer Instagram DMs on their own phone at eleven at night. Connecting Instagram to Klugon puts those messages in one inbox with your website chats and phone calls, answered the same way whoever is on shift. Remember the Meta app review step before the public can message the assistant.

Measuring whether it's working

Give it a month, then look at four things.

Conversations and calls by hour. The analytics page shows your busiest hours and weekdays. If the assistant is mostly busy between 8am and 9.30am and at Saturday brunch, it's taking the load where you need it.
Handed to a person. The analytics page shows how many conversations the assistant handled without a handover. A high handover share usually means your notes are missing something.
Questions without a good answer. The insights page lists questions the assistant couldn't answer well. Most will be gaps in your knowledge base, such as a new cake or a changed rule. Add the answer, and the gap closes.
Bookings and leads. Count afternoon-tea bookings and private-hire enquiries captured. If you converted two private hires from enquiries that came in while you were busy, the plan has paid for itself in most cafes.

One thing it won't tell you is how many customers stayed in the queue because you weren't on the phone. Ask your team after a few weeks whether the morning rush feels different.

Frequently asked questions

Can a cafe AI assistant take orders for coffee and food?

Not in the way your till does. It can answer questions about the menu and prices, and you can set it to note an order request as a lead for staff to confirm. It doesn't send orders to your till or take payment, so most cafes use it for questions, bookings and enquiries rather than ordering.

Will it tell customers we're closed when we've shut early?

Only if you tell it. Add closed dates to your settings, and add one-off changes, such as an early close for a staff party, to your knowledge base. It answers from what you've written.

Can it answer allergen questions?

It can answer from the allergen matrix you upload, for example which cakes contain nuts. It should always tell anyone with an allergy or coeliac disease to speak to staff before ordering, and you can make it flag those conversations for a person. Your staff remain responsible for allergen information.

Does it work on Instagram as well as WhatsApp?

Yes, after setup. Instagram needs a professional account linked to a Facebook Page and Meta's app review for messaging. WhatsApp needs a Meta app and an access token. Both then land in the same inbox as your website chats and phone calls.

Can it put a caller through to me if they insist?

No. Klugon can't transfer a live call. It takes the caller's details, flags the conversation for your team and, if you've connected Slack or Zapier, notifies you. You then ring the customer back.

Do I need to change my phone number?

No. After the free trial, Klugon gives you a number for $9 a month and you forward your existing number to it. Many cafes forward only when the line is busy or unanswered, if their phone provider supports that.

Can it book afternoon tea?

Yes, if you set afternoon tea up as a bookable service with a length and times. The assistant checks a free slot, books it and gives a reference in the conversation. It doesn't send reminders, and it doesn't take deposits.

How long does it take to set up for a cafe?

The website chat is a script tag you paste, which is quick. Writing your menu, rules and allergen notes properly takes longer, usually an afternoon. WhatsApp and Instagram need Meta setup, and a phone number can only be added once the trial ends.

What if a customer asks something it doesn't know?

It tells them it doesn't have that information and offers to pass the question on. The question appears on the insights page under "Questions without a good answer", so you can add the answer for next time.

Is it worth it for a small cafe?

It depends on how often the phone or messages interrupt service. If you miss calls at peak times or lose private-hire enquiries, a Starter plan on one channel is a modest test. If the phone rarely rings, it probably isn't worth it.

If the counter is where your cafe makes its money, keep your staff there. Let Klugon's AI receptionist take the "are you open?" calls, and look at the plans when you're ready to try it.