NUMBER OF THE DAY
Why Every Restaurant Is Morphing Into a Drive-Thru
Thanks to the pandemic, restaurants from Starbucks to Shake Shack want to make it easier to pick up fast food from your car
74%: That’s the percentage of Americans surveyed who said they had visited drive-thrus at fast-food restaurants during the pandemic either the same amount or more often than usual, according to a survey by location technology company Bluedot. Given the risks that indoor dining poses for the spread of the coronavirus, drive-thrus seem to be the ideally designed solution for picking up your burger and fries with a minimal amount of human contact.
Fast Company reports that fast-food chains have noticed this trend and are racing to set up and upgrade drive-thrus to cater to more customers who want to get their calorie fix without leaving their car. Shake Shack is introducing its first drive-thru next year, and Chipotle, which avoided the drive-thru model for decades, opened its 100th “Chipotlane” in August, and plans to retrofit older stores with drive-thru windows wherever possible. Taco Bell has been a drive-thru friendly chain for years, but is now doubling down on drive-thrus, upgrading its drive-thru locations with a mobile pickup lane for a speedier, more seamless experience.
