# Bilingual drive-thru: taking orders in Spanish and other languages

> Canonical: https://maple.inc/blog/multilingual-drive-thru-ordering

*By Maple Team · Published 2026-09-26*

How a drive-thru takes orders in Spanish and other languages: bilingual crew or AI, how chains switch language, Census household data and a lane test.

A drive-thru can take orders in Spanish or another language in two ways: put a bilingual crew member on the headset during the hours those guests come, or use an AI order taker that switches language. Chains using AI switch in one of two ways. Some wait for the guest to say "Español", and others detect the language on their own. Choose by who works your shifts and how many guests you hear in each language.

This guide covers the lane: the speaker, the headset, the order board and the ticket. Our [multilingual kiosk guide](https://maple.inc/blog/kiosk-multilingual-ordering) covers screens and menu translation and shows how to look up your area's languages in Census data. Accents and engine noise at the speaker are in our guide to [drive-thru speech recognition](https://maple.inc/blog/drive-thru-noise-speech-recognition).

## How many drive-thru guests might need another language?

A car often carries one household, so household figures fit the lane better than counts of people. The Census Bureau's [2024 American Community Survey table S1602](https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2024.S1602?g=010XX00US) counts 132.7 million U.S. households, and 18.0 million of them (13.6%) speak Spanish at home.

The same table counts "limited English speaking" households. The Census Bureau's [language FAQ](https://www.census.gov/topics/population/language-use/about/faqs.html) defines these as households where no member aged 14 or over speaks only English or speaks English "very well". In a car from one of these households, there may be nobody who can order for the others in English.

    Language spoken at home Households Limited English speaking households Share of that language group
  Spanish 18.0 million 3.6 million 19.8%
  Other Indo-European languages 6.3 million 0.9 million 14.8%
  Asian and Pacific Island languages 5.4 million 1.2 million 22.0%
  Other languages 1.9 million 0.3 million 14.3%
  All U.S. households 132.7 million 6.0 million 4.5% of all households

National figures say little about one store. Pull table S1602 for your county, using the steps in the kiosk guide. Then count at your own lane: for two weeks, have the crew make a tally mark each time a guest orders in another language, with the hour and the language. That sheet tells you whether you need a bilingual person at lunch, one on every shift, or a system that switches.

## How are chains taking orders in Spanish?

    Chain What was reported How the guest switches
  Checkers & Rally's August 2023: Spanish ordering with Hi Auto at 350 restaurants after a two-month beta at five, per Restaurant Dive The system detects the spoken language and answers in it
  Wendy's August 2024: a Spanish pilot in the drive-thrus of 28 company-operated restaurants in Florida and Ohio, per CBS News , citing Wendy's The guest says "Spanish" or "Español", and the order continues in Spanish
  Bojangles July 2025: Spanish ordering at the drive-thru at many locations, plus the app, website and some kiosks, per Restaurant Business ; its AI order taker, Bo-Linda, ran at more than 400 restaurants Bo-Linda switches from English to Spanish when the guest asks

Restaurant Business also reported that Bo-Linda was taking about 200 Spanish orders a week in its first markets. Hi Auto's [August 2025 release](https://hi.auto/company/newsroom/bojangles-rolls-out-spanish-ai-ordering-across-all-platforms-with-hi-auto/) says, in the vendor's own words, that guests can move between English and Spanish even mid-sentence. Our [Wendy's FreshAI page](https://maple.inc/blog/wendys-ai-drive-thru) covers that pilot in more detail, and the [chain tracker](https://maple.inc/blog/fast-food-chains-ai-drive-thru) lists who else uses AI at the lane.

## Should the system detect the language or wait to be asked?

    Approach How it works What to test Start here if
  Trigger word The guest says a word such as "Español" (the Wendy's pilot) Whether guests know the word, which means the greeting has to say it Nearly all of your non-English orders come in one language
  Detection The system hears the language and replies in it (Hi Auto at Checkers & Rally's) An English order with a strong accent, and a car where driver and passenger speak different languages Guests mix languages, or you hear several
  Bilingual crew A person on the headset takes the order Whether a bilingual person is on every shift your tally shows Other-language orders bunch into a few hours
  Crew backup behind AI The AI hands the order to the crew How fast a person picks up, and whether that person speaks the language You run any AI lane

For a trigger word, add one line to your greeting in the second language, such as "Para ordenar en español, diga «español»." Our [drive-thru greeting scripts](https://maple.inc/blog/drive-thru-greeting-script) cover the rest of the greeting.

Plan the handoff as well. HME's [NEXEO user's guide](https://www.hme.com/techPdfs/D002555%20Rev%20D.pdf) says its order-taking bot sends an escalation when it cannot understand what the guest wants or when the guest speaks a language it does not support. A crew member then touches that lane on the headset to finish the order. Decide who takes those orders on each shift.

## What else changes besides the voice?

- **The order board:** check what language the cart shows on the screen. A guest who ordered in Spanish may be reading English item names. See our [order confirmation board guide](https://maple.inc/blog/drive-thru-order-confirmation-board).
- **The kitchen ticket:** print it in the language your cooks read, whatever language the guest used. The kiosk guide shows how Toast's Kitchen Name field does this.
- **The window:** give the window crew a card with the phrases they need: the total, card or cash, please pull forward, and a short wait.
- **Combo numbers:** numbers on the menu board work in any language, so keep them large and clear.

## How do you test a second language at the lane?

Use bilingual staff in real cars with written orders. Have them place each order once in English and once in the second language, so you can compare the tickets.

1. Start an order with the trigger word, then start one without it.
2. Switch language mid-order: "and a large Coke" becomes "y una Coca-Cola grande".
3. Mix languages in one sentence, with English item names and Spanish modifiers such as "sin cebolla".
4. Have the passenger order in a different language from the driver.
5. Ask for a person in the second language ("quiero hablar con una persona") and time how long a crew member takes to answer.
6. Read the board and the ticket. Check every item, size and modifier, and check that the cooks can read the ticket.
7. Send the next car in English and check that the lane has gone back to your default language.
8. Record ticket errors per order in each language, and compare the two counts.

Add these rows to your [AI drive-thru pilot checklist](https://maple.inc/blog/ai-drive-thru-pilot-checklist) if you are trialing a system.

## Where does Maple fit?

Maple's [drive-thru unit](https://maple.inc/drive-thru) takes orders in many languages, shows a live cart on its screen and writes the order into the POS. Guests can ask for a person at any time, and a one-press kill switch hands the lane back to the crew. It is in early access with a small number of restaurants and is priced per unit, with no public price. The page does not list the languages, so ask for the list and hear a sample order in each language your tally shows. For the phone, Maple's [Voice plan](https://maple.inc/pricing) lists multilingual voice among its features.

*Published by Maple, which sells an early-access drive-thru ordering unit. This AI-assisted guide combines 2024 Census Bureau household language data, chain and vendor announcements as reported by Restaurant Dive, CBS News and Restaurant Business, HME's user guide and Maple's published scope with an original decision table and lane test. It does not report a test of any chain's system or measure how well any vendor's system understands any language.*

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