Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

[storewanderer]

I completely disagree. You shouldn't have to go inside or wait behind others in a drive thru line to get your order. Someone who figures this out could do very well as more people get a positive experience from mobile ordering. The demand may not be there today but it will be there over time as the experience improves.

Well, if you want a mobile order only drive through lane, you will be waiting. You will be waiting if the car in front of you has a large order and it "isn't quite ready yet." You will be waiting as the car in front of you verifies the bag contents, asks for condiments/straws as various states pass laws disallowing the location from automatically providing them and they forgot to ask via the app, changes their mind and decides they do want sauce for the nuggets but didn't ask for it before, etc.

But if you go inside to a designated self serve mobile pick up shelf, while the person above is screwing around, you are able to take your order and go.

In an ideal world where everyone has their act together, gets their order right, shows up on time, etc., yes, a drive through only for mobile orders makes a lot of sense. The cars would be gone from the window almost immediately after pulling up. But that isn't how it works in reality.

Various chains are doing prototypes with designated mobile order only drive through lanes though. It is coming.

[pseudo3d]

What a mess. And here I was hoping they would pull a Pizza Hut and take advantage of mansard roof nostalgia...at least stop destroying them. Various drive-through only prototypes ("McDonald's Classic", "McDonald's Express", etc.) have come and gone from McDonald's over the years. A few more won't hurt.

[storewanderer]

What a mess. And here I was hoping they would pull a Pizza Hut and take advantage of mansard roof nostalgia...at least stop destroying them. Various drive-through only prototypes ("McDonald's Classic", "McDonald's Express", etc.) have come and gone from McDonald's over the years. A few more won't hurt.

I am somewhat laughing at all of these franchisors basically in a race to figure out who can develop the future hot drive through only concept. They see how cheap this can be to open and operate and are loving it (no pun intended).

I mean, maybe some of these will work/stick. Dutch Bros. is doing so well with this format in the coffee space... seems like the only concept I've ever seen that has been successful with a drive through only format. Sure Wienerschnitzel has been in business for a long time and many locations have been drive through only but that is not a place I ever see crowds and it seems like it isn't a high growth operation.

[veteran+]

I completely disagree. You shouldn't have to go inside or wait behind others in a drive thru line to get your order. Someone who figures this out could do very well as more people get a positive experience from mobile ordering. The demand may not be there today but it will be there over time as the experience improves.

Well, if you want a mobile order only drive through lane, you will be waiting. You will be waiting if the car in front of you has a large order and it "isn't quite ready yet." You will be waiting as the car in front of you verifies the bag contents, asks for condiments/straws as various states pass laws disallowing the location from automatically providing them and they forgot to ask via the app, changes their mind and decides they do want sauce for the nuggets but didn't ask for it before, etc.

But if you go inside to a designated self serve mobile pick up shelf, while the person above is screwing around, you are able to take your order and go.

In an ideal world where everyone has their act together, gets their order right, shows up on time, etc., yes, a drive through only for mobile orders makes a lot of sense. The cars would be gone from the window almost immediately after pulling up. But that isn't how it works in reality.

Various chains are doing prototypes with designated mobile order only drive through lanes though. It is coming.

Okay, so what happens if the customer picks up his junk food from the "shelf" and it's wrong or wants to change something or wants to add something like that other customer in the drive thru lane?

[storewanderer]

Okay, so what happens if the customer picks up his junk food from the "shelf" and it's wrong or wants to change something or wants to add something like that other customer in the drive thru lane?

Then they take it up with the staff inside. Meanwhile while that is being dealt with, other customers with completed mobile orders are able to come and go freely. Unless the above customer refuses to move from the pick up shelf area, hindering other customers from picking up orders, until the issue is fixed (like a car at a drive through mobile pick up window wouldn't move until the order is fixed).

[veteran+]

Well, I think the same "clogging" effect would happen because the same common component is people.

People do what they do, just like self service checkout. New studies indicate that self checkout is often times slower than regular checkout because of what "they do".

[pseudo3d]

What a mess. And here I was hoping they would pull a Pizza Hut and take advantage of mansard roof nostalgia...at least stop destroying them. Various drive-through only prototypes ("McDonald's Classic", "McDonald's Express", etc.) have come and gone from McDonald's over the years. A few more won't hurt.

I am somewhat laughing at all of these franchisors basically in a race to figure out who can develop the future hot drive through only concept. They see how cheap this can be to open and operate and are loving it (no pun intended).

I mean, maybe some of these will work/stick. Dutch Bros. is doing so well with this format in the coffee space... seems like the only concept I've ever seen that has been successful with a drive through only format. Sure Wienerschnitzel has been in business for a long time and many locations have been drive through only but that is not a place I ever see crowds and it seems like it isn't a high growth operation.

A lot of it is all reliant on the staffing and the procedures needed. Chick-fil-A's system works because of the staffing, Dutch Bros works because of the staffing (though I've only been to DB once), McDonald's often works because they put the competent people at the windows if the manager knows what they're doing.

But if you don't put competent people or sufficient staffing the whole system falls apart.

[cjd]

Ugh I’m so tired of this no indoor seating trend with these “restaurants of the future.”

Yeah sure I use the drive thru most of the time but sometimes I just want to get out of the house and don’t want to be stuck taking the food home or eating in the car.

And I’m not one to go to a more expensive restaurant with wait staff alone.

That said often times I won’t try to dine in a fast food restaurant in the evening because it seems like the dining room is practically ignored and drive thru orders get full priority.

[storewanderer]

Well, I think the same "clogging" effect would happen because the same common component is people.

People do what they do, just like self service checkout. New studies indicate that self checkout is often times slower than regular checkout because of what "they do".

The pick up shelves in these places are like a "bookshelf" type of thing with multiple shelves. You cannot really open your bag and inspect the contents at the pick up shelf. You have to take the bag off of the shelf and at a minimum move to a counter or table to inspect the contents. This clears the space surrounding the pick up shelf for other customers to go ahead and take their completed orders off the pick up shelf.

The only thing that makes self checkout faster than regular checkout is the sheer number of positions available. For instance let's say we have a busy Safeway in 2008 and they run on Steve Burd budgets meaning there is money for 2 cashiers at 5 PM and lines will stretch down the aisle. With 2 cashiers, that means 2 customers will be paying at once. Of course the one bagger is busy with clean ups or carts so no help to the lines there. Now we do a Lifestyle remodel to the store and add in 4 self checkouts. No additional labor budget is granted so now you have 1 cashier at 5 PM and 1 self checkout attendant at 5 PM. But, at least now 5 customers can be checking out at the same time. As long as the self checkout attendant is properly monitoring the self checkout area, and keeping it moving, this will reduce line length due to having more positions available so 5 people can be paying at once instead of 2 people paying at once.

If you really want to see painful self checkout go watch people at Wal Mart trying to run through a cart transaction including produce through the Wal Mart self checkout. Painful does not describe it. Wal Mart's self checkout interface couldn't be much worse.

[Alpha8472]

Here are some more details.

https://www.brandeating.com/2022/12/mcd ... th-tx.html