Applebee's To Open First Drive Thru

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Alpha8472
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Applebee's To Open First Drive Thru

Post by Alpha8472 »

An Applebee's in Texas will open its first drive thru. I am surprised that it took this long.

Applebee's has been struggling for a while. A drive thru will actually get people to go back there. The take out and pick up options are not as convenient as a drive thru.

I still find Applebee's to be overpriced for its food. Sometimes it seems like their food is nothing but a reheated TV dinner. However, the portions are bigger than what you get at a McDonald's or Burger King.

IHOP, which is owned by the same company, is closing 100 of their locations. Perhaps drive thru would help out at IHOP too. In California, outdoor and indoor dining is banned. Restaurants all over the state are near death except for those that have drive thru windows.

https://people.com/food/applebees-is-te ... -location/
Last edited by Alpha8472 on January 6th, 2021, 11:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.
storewanderer
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Re: Applebee's To Open Frist Drive Thru

Post by storewanderer »

Applebee's has been pushing and to a degree promoting (with things like curbside, etc.) take out for quite a number of years now, before a lot of their competitors were promoting it and certainly before a lot of competitors had the curbside option and heavily pushed take out. So this seems like a natural transition for them.

I haven't eaten at an Applebees in years; the last time was in Klamath Falls probably a decade ago now. It was pretty terrible. The restaurant was rather run down. The person I was with was so disgusted with their meal, they got up halfway through and waited outside while I stayed inside and closed out the bill. Then we went and got some kind of fast food or something after as we didn't consume more than half of the lousy meals. I see the location is still open, so I guess it works there.
buckguy
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Re: Applebee's To Open First Drive Thru

Post by buckguy »

If the food is a poor value and/or simply not very good, then a drive -thru won't and probably shouldn't save them. There are plenty of not great inexpensive chain restaurants. The continued existence of the majority is mostly about private equity efficiently sucking cash out of them.

Over marinated mystery meat steaks and steak fries eventually lose their luster, anyway.
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Re: Applebee's To Open First Drive Thru

Post by Super S »

Applebee's is a restaurant where I have had bad service and/or food almost every time I have eaten there. This includes the "carside to go" where I ended up having to walk inside because nobody came out. How this chain survives puzzles me. I haven't eaten there in at least ten years.
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