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July 16, 2025 at 06:05 AM

How This Fast-Food Chain Used AI to Supercharge Their Drive-Thru and Boost Sales

Hitesh Agja
AI in RestaurantsCase StudyRestaurant AutomationVoice AIFood Tech
How This Fast-Food Chain Used AI to Supercharge Their Drive-Thru and Boost Sales

In the fast-food world, speed is everything. Every second saved at the drive-thru window translates to happier customers and higher sales. But with rising labor shortages and the pressure to deliver orders perfectly, how can a restaurant get even faster?

For Checkers & Rally's, a major American drive-thru chain with over 800 locations, the answer was to hire an employee who never gets tired, never forgets to upsell, and can understand even the most complicated order: an AI voice assistant.

The Challenge: The Drive-Thru Bottleneck

The drive-thru is the heart of Checkers' business model, but it's also a major operational challenge. The company faced several key problems:

  • Labor Dependency: The model required at least one staff member to be glued to a headset, solely focused on taking orders. During peak rushes, this employee became a bottleneck, slowing down the entire line. In a tight labor market, finding and retaining staff for this high-pressure role was difficult.
  • Inconsistent Upselling: Upselling—asking a customer if they want to "go large" or add an apple pie—is a critical driver of revenue. However, busy or forgetful human employees rarely did it 100% of the time, leaving significant money on the table.
  • Order Inaccuracy: A noisy drive-thru environment, combined with diverse accents and custom orders, often led to mistakes. Incorrect orders mean wasted food, lost revenue, and frustrated customers.

Checkers needed a way to improve speed, boost revenue through consistent upselling, and ensure order accuracy, all while making life easier for their existing staff.

The Solution: An AI Voice Assistant at the Speaker 🤖

Checkers & Rally's partnered with Presto Automation to deploy an AI-powered voice assistant in their drive-thrus. This technology, often called Voice AI, acts as a virtual cashier.

Here’s how it works in practice:

  • A customer pulls up to the speaker and is greeted by a friendly, natural-sounding AI voice.
  • The customer places their order by speaking normally, just as they would to a person. The AI is trained on millions of real-world interactions to understand different accents, background noises, and complex customizations (e.g., "a burger with no onions, extra pickles, and a large Coke Zero").
  • The AI intelligently and consistently offers relevant upsells. For instance, if a customer orders a sandwich and a drink, the AI will ask if they'd like to make it a combo to save money.
  • The order is instantly and accurately transcribed and sent to the kitchen's Point of Sale (POS) system.
  • If the AI ever encounters an issue it can't handle (like a highly unusual request), it seamlessly transfers the conversation to an on-site employee to take over.

The Results: Doing More with Less

The deployment of Voice AI across dozens of Checkers & Rally's locations yielded immediate and impressive results.

1. Time and Labor Saved

By automating the order-taking process, on-site employees were freed from their headsets. This allowed staff to focus on higher-value tasks like improving food quality, speeding up food preparation, and providing better face-to-face customer service at the payment window.

This directly addressed the labor shortage by allowing a single location to handle a higher volume of orders with the same number of staff, dramatically increasing labor productivity.

2. Increased Revenue

This was the most significant financial win. The AI never forgets to upsell.

According to reports from Presto, restaurants using their Voice AI technology see an average 6% increase in revenue per order due to consistent, automated upselling. For a busy location, this can translate to over $75,000 in new, high-margin revenue annually.

3. Improved Accuracy and Efficiency

The AI system is highly accurate, significantly reducing the number of incorrect orders.

This led to a direct reduction in food waste (a major cost for restaurants) and fewer refunds. With faster, more accurate orders, the "throughput" of the drive-thru—the number of cars served per hour—increased, leading to shorter wait times and higher customer satisfaction.

Key Takeaway for Your Restaurant ✨

The Checkers & Rally's case study is a landmark example of AI's practical application in the food service industry. It shows that AI can be used to solve the industry's biggest pain points: labor efficiency, revenue growth, and customer experience.

By automating a key bottleneck, they didn't replace their staff; they empowered them. The AI handled the repetitive, high-stress task, allowing human employees to focus on what they do best: cooking great food and making customers happy. This is a powerful recipe for success for any modern restaurant.