Drivingo: A Drive-Thru That Works for Every Customer, Even Without a Voice

Ordering a coffee shouldn't require speaking out loud.

Drivingo started from that simple idea. The Virginia startup, based in Christiansburg and founded in 2022, first set out to build a drive-thru that takes orders through ASL-based gestures, so non-verbal customers could order without ever talking to an employee. In 2023 the team was a finalist at CodeLaunch Houston.

Today the company calls its product a multimodal ordering kiosk. Customers can speak, gesture, or tap a touchscreen, and the kiosk adapts to whoever is standing in front of it.

Here's who they're building for:

• ESL and multilingual guests, with a real-time language swap
• Deaf, mute, and non-verbal customers, through gesture and touch
• Autistic and neurodivergent guests, with a predictable screen and no sudden audio cues

The pitch is rooted in one number: Drivingo says 1 in 4 Americans lives with a disability, and most customer experiences ignore them. The kiosk is designed to be ADA-compliant by default.

The business side is built in too. Drivingo includes POS and ERP tools, plus an AI-driven cloud console that reconciles orders, payments, menus, and inventory across every kiosk and kitchen screen. That means owners get one place to see what's selling and what's running low.

The proof point is local to the DC area. Drivingo's first live location is Tango Pastry, a BIPOC-owned Argentine bakery on H Street NE in Washington, with a launch date of November 9, 2025. The site now shows it live. A small bakery as launch partner is a smart move. It's a busy, real-world counter where the technology has to work with actual customers, not a demo.

One honest note from me. Drivingo also pitches itself as a way to cut front-counter labor costs. Jobs are our lens at IndeedBlack, so that gave me pause. The access story is what pulls me in, and it's worth watching whether employers use tools like this to serve more people or to replace staff.

If you run a restaurant, bakery, or retail counter and want to see a demo, head to drivingo.io and use the Book a Demo button.