If nobody has talked through what the restaurant wants in that moment, whoever's taking the call is inventing the answer on the spot, with a caller waiting. None of this is specific to automating anything — most restaurants already carry a version of this knowledge informally, in a manager who's mentioned, at some point, not to comp more than a certain amount without checking first. What's usually missing is a written version that survives a shift change or a channel with no way to absorb tribal knowledge nobody wrote down.
§ WHAT TO DECIDE BEFORE IT COMES UP
Each category below is a question worth answering for your own kitchen, staffing, and risk tolerance — not a universal rule with one correct answer for every restaurant.
- A large-order threshold. At what size — a dollar amount, an item count, or both — does an order stop being routine and start needing a person's sign-off before the kitchen ever sees it? The right number depends entirely on the kitchen behind it.
- A cash ceiling. Is there a point above which an unconfirmed cash order needs a different process — confirmed in person, held until pickup, or flagged for a manager? A card can be authorized before an order is prepared; a phone-in cash order can't be verified the same way.
- A cutoff near closing. How close to close does the kitchen stop taking new orders, and does the line move with the size of the order? Ten minutes before close is a very different request for a sandwich than for a six-person catering order.
- Off-menu and allergy-adjacent requests. Neither a person nor software can guarantee safety against cross-contact from a phone conversation alone. The safer, more common answer most restaurants land on is a disclaimer paired with a routing offer: state plainly that the information reflects what's posted and hasn't been independently verified beyond that, then offer to connect the caller with someone who can speak to it directly — an offer to route it, never a guarantee that it resolves.
- Who's first, and who's the fallback. When something needs a person's judgment, who gets notified first — and if they don't respond in a reasonable window, who's next?
- What the caller hears while a decision is pending. Silence while someone tracks down a manager, or an honest statement that it can't be confirmed right now and what happens next?
§ WORKING THROUGH IT
A two-cook taco counter handles a table's order of six or eight items without changing the rhythm of the line, but a catering order of forty tacos needs someone pulled off the line entirely to prep proteins in bulk. The owner sets the threshold at twenty items or $150, whichever comes first — anything past that needs a manager's sign-off before it's accepted, not discovered after the tickets start printing.
Working through the allergy-adjacent question produces a different answer, because the risk isn't the same shape. A request to hold the cilantro is routine enough to just do. A request tied to a stated allergy gets a manager's confirmation before it goes back to the kitchen — the prep surfaces are shared, and a confident-sounding yes from a busy line cook mid-rush isn't actually a safety guarantee. Two categories, worked through the same afternoon, landing on two different answers, because the actual risk behind each question is different.
§ WHAT THIS CHECKLIST DOESN'T DECIDE FOR YOU
This is a starting framework, not a finished policy. It doesn't set the actual numbers — those depend entirely on a kitchen's own capacity and local requirements, and a number picked from a guide rather than measured against a real kitchen is a guess wearing the shape of a policy. It doesn't cover every category either — alcohol needs an age-verification path this list doesn't mention. And it's worth revisiting: a threshold set for a two-person line stops making sense the day that kitchen adds a third station.
The specific mechanism behind who gets notified and in what order is covered on how escalation works at Dohos. Request access to see how the categories above get configured.