AI phone ordering for New Jersey restaurants: how Ordero works

The phone rings hardest when the kitchen is busiest

New Jersey is one of the country’s densest restaurant markets. The National Restaurant Association counts 20,553 restaurant locations in the state, 366,400 restaurant and foodservice jobs and $40.4 billion in restaurant and foodservice sales in 2025, and it ranks the industry as New Jersey’s third-largest private employer.

Pizzerias, delis, bakeries and family restaurants still take a big part of their takeout by phone, and the phone tends to ring hardest at the exact moment the kitchen is busiest: Friday and Saturday evenings, game nights, snow days. That is when calls go unanswered, and an unanswered call can simply become an order at the next place on the customer’s list.

What Ordero does on a call

1. Answers at once, in your restaurant’s name. The greeting says it is the automated ordering assistant and that the call may be recorded, so callers know who they are talking to.
2. Takes the order from your real menu. Sizes, toppings, extras and half-and-half pizzas, priced the way you price them. Items you switched off are never offered.
3. Confirms it. Pickup or delivery and the caller’s name, then a read-back of the order with the total.
4. Sends it over. The order, the call and its transcript land in your Ordero panel the moment the call ends: items, extras, pickup time and the caller’s number.

When a caller asks for a person, Ordero passes the call to your staff. When you are closed, it tells the caller when you open next instead of taking an order you cannot make. It takes several calls at the same time, so the Friday rush does not end in voicemail, and it knows regulars by their number, so “the usual” just works.

Eight languages, switching when the caller does

In 2024, 34.3% of New Jersey residents aged 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home, according to Census Bureau survey data summarized by USAFacts. Ordero speaks English, Spanish, Turkish, German, French, Arabic, Korean and Hindi, and it switches when the caller does. More on this in Taking phone orders in Spanish, Korean and more.

Your menu, without retyping it

Upload your menu in the panel as a PDF, photos of the pages, Excel, Word, CSV or JSON. Ordero’s AI reads every item, size, topping and price, and you check it before it is saved. If you run Clover, connect it on the Integrations page and Ordero brings your categories, items, sizes, options and prices over in one click; it only reads from Clover and never changes anything there. When an item runs out, switch it off in the panel and the assistant stops offering it on the next call.

You keep your phone number

The number on your menus, your boxes and your Google listing stays the same. Ordero sets up its own line for your restaurant, and you forward your number to it all the time, or only when your staff cannot pick up. You can start with the second option: the phone rings in the shop first, and Ordero answers what nobody can reach.

What it costs

Setup is $299 once and free on annual plans, and the first month is half price. There is no commission on your orders. A call of up to five minutes counts as one call; a longer call counts as two, and each day stands on its own, in your restaurant’s time zone. The details are on the pricing page.

Getting started

1. Call the demo line, +1 (516) 724-9773, and order a pizza to hear how Ordero sounds.
2. Press Get started: your company, a plan and the agreement. No card is needed that day.
3. Upload your menu or connect Clover, then add your opening hours and the number to pass calls to.
4. We switch your line on with you, and you forward your number.