Presto Announces Nationwide Expansion with Galardi Group for Voice AI-Powered Drive-Thru Solutions at Wienerschnitzel

By: Presto Phoenix, Inc. via Business Wire

March 07, 2025 at 10:31 AM EST

Presto Phoenix, Inc., America’s leading provider of AI-driven solutions for the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry, today announced an expanded partnership with Galardi Group, the parent company of Wienerschnitzel, to deploy its cutting-edge Voice AI ordering technology across the quick-service restaurant chain's drive-thru locations.

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(Photo: Business Wire)

The Galardi Group now has 35 locations operating with Presto’s Voice AI in the drive-thru. The company has already enrolled over 50 locations, with rapid 2025 expansion plans for Wienerschnitzel's nationwide network of over 350 corporate and franchise drive-thru locations.

“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 solution has significantly improved upsell and labor optimization while helping the staff focus on providing exceptional service and food quality.”

“We are delighted to be an early adopter of AI with Presto and have conviction in the ROI we see across upsell revenue, labor cost, and the consistency of the customer experience,” said Rusty Bills, Chief Operating Officer of Galardi Group. “It is time to scale our partnership toward a fully AI-enabled system, which we believe will greatly contribute to the success of our franchisees. The QSR space is rapidly moving in the technology space, and we are happy to partner with Presto to help us navigate this current way of doing business.”

Presto Voice is an industry-leading Voice AI product that automates drive-thru order-taking, in the process becoming a virtual employee, helping staff avoid excessive multi-tasking and driving higher order accuracy and superior customer service. A Presto Voice 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 hot dog stand in 1961. 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,” said JR Galardi, CEO of Galardi Group.

Presto pioneered LLM-driven drive-thru Voice AI, which gets increasingly intelligent every day. With over 15 years of enterprise restaurant experience to scale rollouts nationwide and a customer-centric model that emphasizes corporate and franchisee relationships, Presto has become the best-positioned Voice AI partner for the drive-thru QSR industry.

To learn more about Presto, please visit presto.com.

About Presto Phoenix, Inc.

Presto Phoenix, Inc. is the largest American drive-thru Voice AI provider to the restaurant industry. Presto’s Voice AI product increases revenue, decreases labor costs, improves staff productivity, and standardizes/enhances the guest experience. Presto counts some of the most recognized quick-service restaurant (QSR) brands in the United States as customers and is expanding nationwide. Based in Silicon Valley, Presto is fully capitalized from deep-pocketed AI investors and aims to deliver a full suite of Vertical AI solutions for restaurant chains to enable end-to-end automation.

About Wienerschnitzel

Founded by John Galardi in 1961 with a single hot dog stand in Wilmington, California, Wienerschnitzel (www.wienerschnitzel.com) is one of the iconic pioneers of the quick-service food industry. The World’s Largest Hot Dog Chain serves more than 120 million hot dogs annually – and is fueled by a mission of “Serving Food to Serve Others,” giving back a percentage of profits to its charitable partners. Based in Irvine, CA, Galardi Group Inc. franchises nearly 350 Wienerschnitzel restaurants in 10 states. The Galardi Group is also the parent company and franchisor of Hamburger Stand and Tastee Freez, LLC.