Drive-thru technology set to accelerate after pandemic

Starbucks has employees at hundreds of busy locations strolling through car lines, taking orders with hand-held devices so customers can get their caffeine fix a few seconds faster. Shake Shack, which has long emphasized that quality ingredients are worth waiting a few extra minutes for, will soon feature its first drive-thru window. And the vast majority of new Chipotles this year will have “Chipotlanes,” where customers can drive up to a window and pull away with preordered meals in less than a minute.

With dining room restrictions in place for much of the country during the pandemic, drive-thru and pickup windows became critical ways for a variety of restaurants to remain afloat.

Now, as the dining industry looks toward a post-pandemic world, many companies are betting big that digital ordering and drive-thrus will remain integral to their success. And the basic experience of sitting in a single line of cars, speaking into a sometimes garbled intercom and pulling up to a window to pay for your food before driving away is poised to be demonstrably altered for the first time in decades.

A number of restaurants are moving quickly to improve their online order and app abilities, change their physical designs or add two or three drive-thru lanes. Some are testing artificial intelligence systems to tailor suggestions for individuals who pull up to the menu board.

“The drive-thru has been one of those places that hasn’t changed in decades,” said Ellie Doty, North American chief marketing officer for Burger King. “But with COVID, we’re seeing the dramatic acceleration of directions we were already going.”

Shake Shack is experimenting with a number of new designs and plans, including walk-up windows and curbside pickup. It will open its first drive-thru this year in Orlando, Florida, and plans five to eight more through 2022.

“We had started working on some of the formats even prior to the pandemic,” said Andrew McCaughan, chief development officer for Shake Shack. “But we saw a massive accelerator and catalyst to move faster and to get drive-thru really going.”

Drive-thru times average 4 minutes, 15 seconds, according to Bluedot, a geolocation company. Like a Daytona 500 pit crew, restaurants are always looking for ways to shave off minutes, or even seconds.

To be competitive in this race, Chipotle, whose digital orders soared from 20% of its sales to as high as 70% at the height of the pandemic, installed in many of its kitchens a second assembly line where employees put together tacos or burrito bowls for mobile and online orders exclusively.

The chain also expects that 70% of its restaurants that open this year will have the dedicated Chipotlanes for online orders.

“We’re trying to get our service time from when you pull up to the restaurant, pick up your food and drive off to 40 or 50 seconds,” said Jack Hartung, chief financial officer of Chipotle.

WINNIE AU/THE NEW YORK TIMES A “Chipotlane” allows Chipotle customers to get their preordered food quickly. Above, a Chipotle in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.