Dave's Hot Chicken . Restaurants

Drive-thru voice AI ordering

Killed

Pilot

Production

Scaled

Killed

our guests didn't enjoy talking to a robot at the drive-thru, and so we pulled it.From the source, 2026-06-05

What happened

Dave's Hot Chicken, a chain of about 440 restaurants backed by Roark Capital, tested drive-thru voice AI and then removed it. CTO Leon Davoyan told CIO Dive the system worked well on completing orders, but guests did not like talking to a robot. The chain has not said when the test ran or which vendor it used.

Sources

Dave's Hot Chicken diners don't want to talk to robots (CIO Dive)

Company: Dave's Hot Chicken
Industry: Restaurants
Vendor / platform: Not stated in source
Type: Voice agent
Status: Killed
Evidence date: 2026-06-05
Source: https://www.ciodive.com/news/daves-hot-chicken-future-technology-strategy-pos-kds-robots/822046/
Last checked: 2026-10-17

Status reflects only what the linked source states on the evidence date. If it changed, Suggest an update.