We make Joep, the phone assistant for hospitality

Who is behind it

Thomas van BuurenFounder of BullNice B.V.

Joep is a product of BullNice B.V. in Bussum, founded in 2025 by Thomas van Buuren. Thomas talks to every new customer himself: he does the meetings, sets Joep up together with restaurants and hears in those conversations what could be better. What he hears goes back into the product.

How Joep came to be

Hospitality has been short-staffed for years, and at the same time customers expect the phone to be answered: at peak time, on several lines at once, even when everyone is in the kitchen. Every missed call is a missed order or reservation. And whoever does pick up is not with the guests or at the fryer at that moment.

That is where Joep came from: an assistant who answers the way a colleague does, puts the order on the receipt or books the reservation, and sends the customer a confirmation. Without anyone leaving the floor. No menu tree and no hold music, just an ordinary conversation.

Joep is built together with the first venues that use him, from snack bar to restaurant. What they go through on the phone decides what Joep can do. That he says on every call that he is an AI has been so from day one: it is required, but for us above all a matter of honesty.