McDonald's drive thru setup

cjd
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McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by cjd »

Have noticed the newer and remodeled McDonald's in my area all have the double speaker setup. These restaurants have ordering and pickup windows, and a second pickup window out in the dining room. At one location here have been asked at times to drive up to the second pickup window when there was a wait for my items. Most recently there was a holdup in the line and by the time I got to the first window, my order was ready and they gave it to me there as I paid.

Most of these locations depending on the setup of the parking lot also have numbered parking spaces, so that if the line is excessively backed up, they ask you to drive into these spaces and they bring the food to your car. I have seen these used often at an out of town location but not so much here.

I also recall the 1990s era built McDonald's in my area would have three windows as well, but all three were on the kitchen side. Don't ever recall all three windows ever being used however. I believe this may have been a setup where one would place their order at the first window, pay at second and pickup at third. Don't see how this would speed things up however.

I have noticed is other fast food restaurants don't have any of these things, you typically only see a single pay and pickup window at places like Taco Bell or DQ. Some places here such as Wendy's do have two windows but you never see the first one actually in use. Often with Wendy's or Arby's you see there is a door from the dining room on the drive thru side which serves the same function as McD's third window, in allowing cars waiting on orders to pull forward so the line isn't held up.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by pseudo3d »

cjd wrote: August 30th, 2019, 11:14 pm Have noticed the newer and remodeled McDonald's in my area all have the double speaker setup. These restaurants have ordering and pickup windows, and a second pickup window out in the dining room. At one location here have been asked at times to drive up to the second pickup window when there was a wait for my items. Most recently there was a holdup in the line and by the time I got to the first window, my order was ready and they gave it to me there as I paid.

Most of these locations depending on the setup of the parking lot also have numbered parking spaces, so that if the line is excessively backed up, they ask you to drive into these spaces and they bring the food to your car. I have seen these used often at an out of town location but not so much here.

I also recall the 1990s era built McDonald's in my area would have three windows as well, but all three were on the kitchen side. Don't ever recall all three windows ever being used however. I believe this may have been a setup where one would place their order at the first window, pay at second and pickup at third. Don't see how this would speed things up however.

I have noticed is other fast food restaurants don't have any of these things, you typically only see a single pay and pickup window at places like Taco Bell or DQ. Some places here such as Wendy's do have two windows but you never see the first one actually in use. Often with Wendy's or Arby's you see there is a door from the dining room on the drive thru side which serves the same function as McD's third window, in allowing cars waiting on orders to pull forward so the line isn't held up.
Most of my local McDonald's stores were built in the 1970s and 1980s have been demolished and rebuilt, and since then, those locations have remodeled to their newest prototype. The last time I ordered McDonald's from a drive through (in Waco, which was a late 1990s/early 2000s store remodeled into a newer store with two drive-throughs) they had me pull up to a parking space.

To me, I think most McDonald's stores (especially retrofitted ones) just aren't properly equipped to handle two drive-through lanes like Chick-fil-A does.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by cjd »

pseudo3d wrote: August 31st, 2019, 6:21 amMost of my local McDonald's stores were built in the 1970s and 1980s have been demolished and rebuilt, and since then, those locations have remodeled to their newest prototype. The last time I ordered McDonald's from a drive through (in Waco, which was a late 1990s/early 2000s store remodeled into a newer store with two drive-throughs) they had me pull up to a parking space.

To me, I think most McDonald's stores (especially retrofitted ones) just aren't properly equipped to handle two drive-through lanes like Chick-fil-A does.
Both McD's here were 1994 era stores. One had replaced a 70s era store and got an extensive remodel in 2012 and I just looked on Google Streetview as I honestly couldn't remember, but it does not have the 3 window setup. But it does have a door on the front which I assume is for the same purpose (it is fenced off from the outdoor seating area.) This location also does not have numbered parking spaces, possibly because there's no parking in front of or to the right of the building.

The other McDonald's also built in 1994 was completely torn down about a year ago and rebuilt. They actually demolished an old restaurant next door and expanded the parking lot into it. It also seems the building is now longer, and this one does have the third window and parking spaces.

Although I know of another remodeled existing (possibly 90s) McD's that also did have a third window added in the dining room, and numbered spaces.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by BillyGr »

cjd wrote: August 30th, 2019, 11:14 pm I also recall the 1990s era built McDonald's in my area would have three windows as well, but all three were on the kitchen side. Don't ever recall all three windows ever being used however. I believe this may have been a setup where one would place their order at the first window, pay at second and pickup at third. Don't see how this would speed things up however.
That is exactly what the three window setup was designed for - one to order, one to pay, one to pickup.

At that time they were trying to make the drive thru more "personal" by having you order talking to a person at the window, rather than via the speaker elsewhere as most do, rather than being concerned about making the process faster.

Even when it was new, they fairly often cut it down to two windows (usually having one person do the order & pay part), particular during the quitter times of day.
These originally had 3 sided signs above each window that could be turned to indicate what each was being used for, which was fine except when they forgot to switch one and you sat at the first window waiting for someone to arrive when they were at the second waiting for you but forgot to change the first sign to say pull forward to next window!
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by Knight »

McDonald's has had strange drive thru setups.

The one and one-half drive through lanes should be two complete lanes. It is costly to add a conveyor system and a separate building with a window for the second drive thru lane. If McDonalds and Chick-fil-A want two or more complete lanes, they need to spend more money.

Three windows is one too many. Two windows work well for paying and for picking up. Many quick service restaurants are going back to one window.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by Super S »

Knight wrote: September 25th, 2019, 10:20 am McDonald's has had strange drive thru setups.
The strangest setup I have seen was at a Taco Bell about 10-15 years ago. They had some kind of low-budget "shack" or shed type of building where you would pay, but did not have a register and the employee made change using a calculator, I guess communicating into the restaurant (walkie talkie?) where another person ran a register. Yet you ordered at a speaker like usual. This slowed things down considerably. Not sure if this is still used (I haven't eaten at Taco Bell in at least 10 years) I guess this was a rushed attempt to test a 2 window concept. Every time I visited a location with this setup the order was all screwed up.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by Brian Lutz »

The strangest one I've seen is in the McDonald's at Third and Pine in Downtown Seattle, which has no drive thru (being an urban location), but has a walk-up ordering window facing the outside of the building which requires a conveyor system which carries orders from the kitchen over the soda fountain to the window. It seems to me that they may offer a limited menu from the walk up window, but it's been quite a while since I've been there so I can't say for sure.

Street View

Around here I think the most common setup at McDonald's restaurants here is two menu boards/ordering speakers and two windows (1 to pay, 1 to pick up,) and if there's enough space for it there will be two lanes for ordering that converge into one. Newer Wendy's restaurants have started using this setup too (from what I've seen there's a camera system that takes pictures of the cars to help the drive thru attendants keep track of which car ordered what). Taco Bells mostly have a single menu board and a single window, and as a result they also tend to have some of the longest and slowest drive thru lines in town. Chick-Fil-As here also have one board and one menu, but when the drive thru is busy they can send an employee out with a tablet to walk through the line and take orders (and presumably also take card payments.) I believe In-N-Out uses a similar setup, but whenever I'm there I usually eat in so I can't say for sure what they're using.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by rwsandiego »

Brian Lutz wrote: September 25th, 2019, 12:47 pm The strangest one I've seen is in the McDonald's at Third and Pine in Downtown Seattle, which has no drive thru (being an urban location), but has a walk-up ordering window facing the outside of the building which requires a conveyor system which carries orders from the kitchen over the soda fountain to the window....
The McDonald's I trained at in 1982 had the conveyor setup for their drive-through. The store was very large and had the drive-through added years after it had last been remodeled. When they re-built the store the conveyor was toast.
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by BillyGr »

rwsandiego wrote: September 25th, 2019, 7:36 pm
Brian Lutz wrote: September 25th, 2019, 12:47 pm The strangest one I've seen is in the McDonald's at Third and Pine in Downtown Seattle, which has no drive thru (being an urban location), but has a walk-up ordering window facing the outside of the building which requires a conveyor system which carries orders from the kitchen over the soda fountain to the window....
The McDonald's I trained at in 1982 had the conveyor setup for their drive-through. The store was very large and had the drive-through added years after it had last been remodeled. When they re-built the store the conveyor was toast.
There was one location in NYC that I know of that had the walk-up window but last time I was in the area (a couple years ago now) the restaurant was closed for a remodel, so no idea if it survived or not. It is/was along Broadway somewhere north of their 125th Street location (that one is notable for being basically a standard older style mansard store plopped into a city setting, including a small parking area and drive thru lane).

The McDonald's on the NY State Thruway also have conveyors, as the way the buildings were built the drive thru lane runs along the rear of the building (basically on the totally opposite side of the kitchen from the service counter), so they would pack the orders into bags and send those via the conveyor to the drive thru window, rather than the kitchen having to be set up to make items for two separate service areas. They may have separate machines for some things near the drive thru (like drinks), but I'm not totally sure how much duplication they have (or how much would exist normally anyhow, like an extra soda machine, coffee etc.).
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Re: McDonald's drive thru setup

Post by rwsandiego »

BillyGr wrote: September 27th, 2019, 5:27 pm...
The McDonald's on the NY State Thruway also have conveyors, as the way the buildings were built the drive thru lane runs along the rear of the building (basically on the totally opposite side of the kitchen from the service counter), so they would pack the orders into bags and send those via the conveyor to the drive thru window, rather than the kitchen having to be set up to make items for two separate service areas. They may have separate machines for some things near the drive thru (like drinks), but I'm not totally sure how much duplication they have (or how much would exist normally anyhow, like an extra soda machine, coffee etc.).
That's why the McDonald's I trained at had the drive-thru set up the way they did. During the reconstruction they reconfigured the building. The store I actually worked at was built so that the drive-thru area was adjacent to the service counter. The DT had its own drink station and two registers (one for taking orders and another for taking orders and receiving payment). It is always fun to see how the drive-thru has evolved over the years.
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