Based in Maryland, Titan Hospitality Group operates some of the DMV’s most recognized brands, including Blackwall Hitch, Smashing Grapes, and The Blackwall Barn & Lodge. Known for chef-driven menus, upscale interiors, and a focus on community, Titan blends local ingredients with thoughtful hospitality across its growing portfolio. With over 25 years in the industry, the group’s reputation for operational excellence and memorable guest experiences sets a high bar.
Titan’s success in scaling its footprint across the Mid-Atlantic came with a hidden cost: an overwhelming volume of guest phone calls. At certain locations, the call volume had become a daily burden.
“One of our stores was getting thousands of calls a week, and sometimes that is just crippling,” said Scott Selman, Marketing & IT Consultant for Titan Hospitality. “That volume of calls was just so heavy that it was a lot of time being taken away from the team.”
Staff members, especially during peak hours, found themselves torn between answering calls and serving guests in-house. At the same time, the cracks began to show when they noticed that the phone systems themselves couldn’t support the business’s growth.
When thinking through potential solutions, Scott remarked, “Calls are being missed. Maybe we're dealing with a voicemail system that was set up six years ago. Where are the calls going? Who's monitoring them? When we opened up Pandora's box to explore putting Slang AI into our units, what we found in our legacy phone products was very eye-opening.”
It wasn’t just that calls were being missed, but that the business had no reliable way to see what was slipping through the cracks. They needed a system that could scale with their brand, relieve pressure on staff, and deliver clear, actionable data.
Eventually, Titan Hospitality implemented Slang AI across nine of its busiest locations following a successful initial rollout. Over the first 30 days alone, Slang AI managed 18,656 inbound calls, including 3,766 coinciding calls. Slang AI also handled 1,305 after-hours calls, ensuring guests got answers regardless of staff availability.
“Slang AI gives us the ability to take those hundreds of hours back and use those for other things in the restaurant, serving our guests who are right there,” said Scott.
“We've certainly seen it in terms of how it's affected the frontline staff in terms of the call volume. That's invaluable.”
However, the most impactful outcome wasn’t just the number of calls Slang AI answered. For Titan, one of the most essential components was Slang AI’s direct integration with OpenTable, which enabled the voice AI to book and modify reservations in real-time.
Over that first 30 days, 1,955 reservations were successfully booked by voice, and 74 were through Slang AI's Cross-Sell Reservations feature. When a guest’s desired time isn’t available, the Cross-Sell feature surfaces open reservations at other sister restaurant locations. This unlocks the ability to maximize revenue across the entire group's portfolio of restaurants for reservations that otherwise would be lost.
In addition to alleviating pressure on team members and driving more covers, Slang AI’s insight data provided leadership at Titan Hospitality with a new perspective on operational performance. With clear visibility into call volume trends, missed opportunities, and guest needs, the management team was able to make more informed decisions across locations.
“[For me], the data on the back end is more powerful than the booking system itself,” said Scott. “It's really clear for our management team to be able to look at it and say, ‘We've got something bigger going on here, and we need to figure out how to address this.’”
It’s clear that managing high call volume and capturing more reservations by phone was proving the value of Slang AI. Beyond these primary benefits, Titan Hospitality viewed Slang AI as a valuable provider of data that aided in business-critical decisions from staffing to process optimization.
“One of the things that surprised me the most was the cross-selling. These reservations would have never happened had we not had a feature like this.”
—Scott Selman, Marketing & It Consultant for Titan Hospitality
