heytruffle raises funding from Preface Ventures, rebrands from RestoHost

heytruffle, a fully managed AI phone concierge for multi-location restaurant groups, has secured new funding from Preface Ventures and changed its name from RestoHost as it pushes to expand across the United States. The company said restaurant operators are increasing spending on artificial intelligence, citing a 2025 Deloitte study in which 82 percent of restaurant executives planned to raise AI investment and a 2025 Toast survey of more than 700 operators showing 86 percent were comfortable using AI. It linked that demand to labor shortages highlighted in the National Restaurant Association's 2025 State of the Industry report, which found many operators lacked enough staff to meet current demand. Rather than offering a fully autonomous voice bot, heytruffle says it trains a custom AI concierge for each restaurant and supports it with a human team that reviews calls and improves the system weekly. The service handles reservations, catering, private events, guest questions, and now pickup and delivery orders, while routing callers to staff when a person is needed. The company said the model is designed to protect the guest experience rather than replace workers. heytruffle pointed to Rreal Tacos, a 12-location group in Georgia, as an example of adoption at scale. Across all of its restaurants, the service handles more than 20,000 calls a month and in a typical month supported the seating of 14,085 guests. The new funding will back expansion to more restaurant groups. The company also introduced an integration with OpenTable that allows the concierge to manage reservations inside a platform already used by many restaurants, alongside existing POS (point-of-sale checkout system) and reservation tools. Founder and CEO Lucas Espina said restaurants do not need another piece of software to manage and that the funding will help bring the service to more groups. The concierge operates in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German.