US hotdog chain Wienerschnitzel is using voice AI technology from California-based Presto Phoenix to improve ordering across it drive-through outlets.

Wienerschnitzel’s parent company Galardi now has 35 locations operating with Presto’s voice AI in the drive-through. The company has already enrolled more than 50 locations, with rapid 2025 expansion plans for Wienerschnitzel’s nationwide network of 350 corporate and franchise drive-throughs.

“We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with the Galardi Group and bring Presto Voice to Wienerschnitzel locations across the country,” said Gee Lefevre, CEO of Presto. “Our AI-driven offering has significantly improved upsell and labour optimisation while helping the staff focus on providing exceptional service and food quality.”

Rusty Bills, chief operating officer of Galardi Group, added: “We are delighted to be an early adopter of AI with Presto and have conviction in the RoI we see across upsell revenue, labour cost and the consistency of the customer experience. It is time to scale our partnership towards a fully AI-enabled system, which we believe will greatly contribute to the success of our franchisees.”

Presto Voice is a voice AI product that automates drive-through order-taking, in the process becoming a virtual employee, helping staff avoid excessive multi-tasking and driving higher order accuracy and better customer service. An upsell test with Wienerschnitzel’s all-beef hotdog yielded a 5% average increase in total sales when Presto Voice consistently upsold the all-beef hotdog.

“Ours is a story of great American entrepreneurship and growth that started with a single hotdog stand in 1961,” said JR Galardi, CEO of Galardi Group. “As we expand our business over the next decade, we believe our early adoption of AI will help enable this same culture of being forward-thinking and results-oriented.”

Presto (presto.com) pioneered LLM-driven drive-through voice AI, which gets increasingly intelligent every day. It has 15 years of enterprise restaurant experience to scale rollouts nationwide and a customer-centric model that emphasises corporate and franchisee relationships.

Founded by John Galardi in 1961 with a single hotdog stand in Wilmington, California, Wienerschnitzel (www.wienerschnitzel.com) is one of the pioneers of the fast-food industry. The chain serves more than 120 million hotdogs annually. Based in Irvine, California, Galardi franchises nearly 350 Wienerschnitzel outlets in ten states.