Restaurant front-of-house host: €34k/year vs AI 24/7

“I'd rather just hire someone for the front desk.”

I hear it once a week in demos. It's a good answer to a real question, and I don't try to knock it down. I ask one thing back: how many hours will that person cover?

Because the number that causes the problem isn't the salary. It's the gap between their hours and yours. A restaurant front-of-house host costs €34,000 a year, on-costs included. For that price, they pick up the phone 35 hours a week. Your restaurant is open 80. The rest, nobody covers, and nobody bills you for it.

€34,000 Total annual employer cost of a full-time front-of-house host under the French HCR collective agreement, for 35 weekly hours against 80 hours of restaurant trading time.

€34k a year for 35 hours of cover

Gross salary under HCR level II, grade 1: €1,802 monthly. The French minimum wage, set at €11.88 an hour.

Employer on-costs in the French hospitality sector: 42%, the URSSAF baseline once specific employment subsidies are excluded.

Add uniform, training, occupational health and the occasional performance bonus. Real employer cost: €2,800 per month. Across the year, paid leave and pro-rata 13th month included: €33,500 to €35,000.

That is what the post costs. Let us look at what it covers.

The five windows nobody picks up

A lunch service runs from 10am to 3pm. An evening service, from 6pm to 11pm. Effective restaurant trading time: 9am to 11pm, six days a week, roughly 80 hours.

A full-time host covers 35. Here are the windows that stay silent, every week, whatever you do:

• 7am-10am. Before they arrive. Diners are booking that very lunch.
• 2pm-5pm. Between services. Mandatory HCR break.
• 10pm-7am. Nine hours of silence every night.
• Sunday-Monday. Usual closing days, yet 31% of the week's bookings are placed on those days (OpenTable Europe panel 2024).
• Five weeks of paid leave + ten sick days on average + 70% HCR turnover. UMIH-FAGIHT 2025.

None of those lines criticises the post. They are normal hours, and that is the problem.

How many hours a week does your phone go silent? See how many calls you lose

The hidden cost: €6,500 in lost revenue every month

This is the calculation we do together on the phone, in five minutes. Redo it with your own figures.

A 2024 GNI study estimates that one in four diners at a full-service restaurant rings before coming. For 200 covers a day, that is 50 calls. If 35 hours cover 44% of your trading time, 56% of calls fall into a void. With a 30% no-callback rate, you lose 100 bookings a month.

Multiply by an average ticket of €65: €6,500 in revenue evaporates every month. €78,000 across the year, 2.3 times the host's fully-loaded salary.

• 35h Real cover (out of 80h trading time)
• 56% Off-hours calls (never picked up)
• 70% HCR turnover (UMIH-FAGIHT 2025)

Host vs Heep: a task-by-task comparison

Comparing a salary against a subscription means nothing. Comparing what each one does, that works.

Full-time host

€2,800/month for 35h

Phone only. French + one language. Mandatory breaks. Paid leave. Sick days. 70% turnover. Off the clock at night, on Sundays, between services.

Heep AI agent

From €99/month for 168 weekly hours

Missed calls recovered by message (WhatsApp, otherwise SMS), plus SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram DM and email handled directly. Replies in the guest's language. Zero breaks. Zero leave. Zero turnover. Available every second, Sundays and bank holidays included.

And here is what I always say first: a host does presence work. They read the room, they sense when a table is getting restless. No machine does that. Running your restaurant without hiring a host is now possible, but it isn't what I'd advise if you have the volume for the post.

Simulate your real coverage

Case study: 47 bookings saved in two months

Case study

Bordeaux bistro, 70 covers: €6,100 recovered in 60 days

Traditional venue, one full-time host, lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday. Before Heep, 38% of calls ended on voicemail. After install, every missed call outside presence hours or on closed days gets a WhatsApp or SMS message within seconds, and the booking is closed in writing.

• 47 bookings saved / 2 months
• €6,100 revenue recovered
• 0 posts cut

Zero posts cut is the line that matters. The host still welcomes diners on the floor, she just stopped chasing the phone mid-rush. See also the no-show cost calculator to estimate another recoverable revenue stream.

How to switch in 30 days

The transition runs without service disruption. Here is the sequence we apply on every rollout.

1. Day 1, Phone audit

   Analysis of current missed calls via your telecoms provider. Output: weekly volume and lost windows.

2. Day 7, Configuration

   Connection to your booking system (Zenchef, TheFork, SevenRooms). Import of menu, opening hours, house rules.

3. Day 14, Parallel launch

   Heep only recovers off-presence missed calls by message. Your host continues their normal service. No floor disruption.

4. Day 30, Full switch

   Heep recovers every missed call by message and handles the written channels: SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, email. The host stays on physical greeting.

For the detailed mechanics, read: how Heep works in 30 seconds.

That's what I answer on the phone: keep the post, it isn't what costs you money. At tomorrow's open, pull up the call log and count the ones before 10am and after 10pm. It's the only line here you don't have to take my word for.