Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

cjd
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by cjd »

Getting drinks at these kiosk orders can be frustrating. At McDonald’s at one point the cups were at the counter and you could just take whichever one you needed. The employee if one was there didn’t seem to want to mess with getting you a cup and just said to take which one I needed.

At places like Taco Bell the cups are behind the counter. The employees in my experience never ask if you had a drink and just run off back to making orders as soon as they call out the name/order, so you have to wait for them to come back out and explain that you had a cup.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by storewanderer »

cjd wrote: December 26th, 2022, 7:32 am Getting drinks at these kiosk orders can be frustrating. At McDonald’s at one point the cups were at the counter and you could just take whichever one you needed. The employee if one was there didn’t seem to want to mess with getting you a cup and just said to take which one I needed.

At places like Taco Bell the cups are behind the counter. The employees in my experience never ask if you had a drink and just run off back to making orders as soon as they call out the name/order, so you have to wait for them to come back out and explain that you had a cup.
Just wait until your McDonalds removes self serve drinks and goes to employee serve drinks. If my experiences with McDonalds locations that have no self serve drinks in Minden, Susanville, and Reno are any indication, you will have your food order 1-2 minutes before you have your drink. I'll refrain from commenting on the 2-3 minute waits for drinks I had down in SoCal as I did not order food so it is unclear how the timing would have gone, or the 10+ minute wait I had at one in Utah on a drink only order.

I am basically at the point I will just not even purchase a drink from McDonalds anymore in these locations that do not have self serve drinks.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by BillyGr »

cjd wrote: December 26th, 2022, 7:32 am Getting drinks at these kiosk orders can be frustrating. At McDonald’s at one point the cups were at the counter and you could just take whichever one you needed. The employee if one was there didn’t seem to want to mess with getting you a cup and just said to take which one I needed.

At places like Taco Bell the cups are behind the counter. The employees in my experience never ask if you had a drink and just run off back to making orders as soon as they call out the name/order, so you have to wait for them to come back out and explain that you had a cup.
The one here usually hands you the cup when you order, so it isn't an issue. On the other hand, getting the actual food was awfully slow last time if you were ordering inside, while river thru kept moving (this is the combo of Taco Bell and LJS).
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by Knight »

Most McDonald's locations I see have 1.5 drive through lanes. The lanes consist of a complete lane for ordering and windows for paying and pickup, and a half lane for ordering and no windows for paying and pickup. For the complete drive through lanes, some locations have issues having orders ready, fresh, and cooked to order at pickup windows. McDonald's has the opportunity to perfect multiple drive through lanes to avoid quality and performance issues.

Chick-fil-A is innovative with multiple locations having two or more complete drive through lanes using conveyor systems.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by cjd »

Knight wrote: December 27th, 2022, 1:21 pm Most McDonald's locations I see have 1.5 drive through lanes. The lanes consist of a complete lane for ordering and windows for paying and pickup, and a half lane for ordering and no windows for paying and pickup. For the complete drive through lanes, some locations have issues having orders ready, fresh, and cooked to order at pickup windows. McDonald's has the opportunity to perfect multiple drive through lanes to avoid quality and performance issues.

Chick-fil-A is innovative with multiple locations having two or more complete drive through lanes using conveyor systems.
Most if not all McDonalds, (and more recently Burger Kings) in my area have had the two speaker setup for a while.

It helps somewhat, but as you say, there are still issues having orders ready once the car reaches the pickup window.

Most McDonald’s I have seen have installed a third window as well. If the food is going to take longer, they instruct the driver to go to the third window for pickup to keep things moving.

If that’s still creating issues, then they have them pull into a numbered pickup spot so the food is brought out. Other places with only one speaker such as a Dairy Queen use this system as well. Somehow at McDonald’s those numbered spots can also be used for mobile pickup orders via the app.

I’ve also seen more often lately Wendy’s using separate pay and pickup windows again, whereas in the past the first window was rarely if ever open.

Years ago McDonald’s had a 3 window setup with face to face ordering where the first window was to order, second to pay ave third to pickup. But I don’t remember the setup ever actually being employed for that. Instead I only ever remember the first window being used to pay and last to pickup. Most all of those 3 window setups had the second window removed by now.

Most McDonald’s now with a second pickup window have it either out in the dining room, or newer constructed ones have a prep area that extends all the way to the front of the building and the window is part if that space.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by BillyGr »

cjd wrote: December 27th, 2022, 2:11 pm Most McDonald’s I have seen have installed a third window as well. If the food is going to take longer, they instruct the driver to go to the third window for pickup to keep things moving.

Years ago McDonald’s had a 3 window setup with face to face ordering where the first window was to order, second to pay ave third to pickup. But I don’t remember the setup ever actually being employed for that. Instead I only ever remember the first window being used to pay and last to pickup. Most all of those 3 window setups had the second window removed by now.
They did use all three at times for a bit when this was first popular, but usually only at busy times. More often they would use two (one to order and pay, the other to pickup) - I think they went with 1st & 3rd, probably to allow more orders to be taken while the first was still at the pickup getting prepared.

Some of the older ones still have the three windows, though the ones I know simply covered the first one and only use the 2nd (to pay) and 3rd (to pickup). Seems they might be able to revert if they wanted to use all three to have that second location for pickup available, but it may depend on how easy accessing the second window is from the production end.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by Alpha8472 »

I too have seen an old 90s McDonald's with 3 windows in San Ramon, California. The first was an in-person order window. That is now covered up.

I know of new McDonald's with 2 ordering lanes, and 3 drive thru windows. You pay at the first and pick up at the second. The third window is rarely used for pick up for orders that take longer.

At my local Wendy's the first window is for paying second window is for pick up. The pickup window cannot process credit card payments. The employee has to bring your credit card back to the first window if you miss the first window.

Many Burger King restaurants tell you to park in a space until your order is ready. They are so behind. This requires an employee to walk outside with every order. It is labor intensive.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on December 30th, 2022, 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by Brian Lutz »

The McDonald's in Sandy on 700 East which got torn down and rebuilt appears to have soft opened today (with an official opening date of January 2nd) after several months of construction. Overall the restaurant seems to be on the small side for having replaced a Mansard style restaurant, but still has a decent size seating area. Like some of the other newer builds there is no customer-facing soda fountain in this one, but it does appear that there is a place where one could be added later. The decor seems a bit more industrial than I would normally expect from a McDonald's, with some exposed concrete walls and several of the printed wall coverings giving a more industrial appearance. I also noticed that this restaurant had some new model of PINPad I had never seen in a McDonald's before. I typically mobile order so I don't know how well that one would work. Surprisingly, execution seemed good for a newly reopened store, although I think they may have some items not in stock yet. It does appear that the drive thru is the 3-window type, although I didn't look too closely.
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Re: Mcdonald's Drive Thru Of The Future

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: December 30th, 2022, 1:04 pm The McDonald's in Sandy on 700 East which got torn down and rebuilt appears to have soft opened today (with an official opening date of January 2nd) after several months of construction. Overall the restaurant seems to be on the small side for having replaced a Mansard style restaurant, but still has a decent size seating area. Like some of the other newer builds there is no customer-facing soda fountain in this one, but it does appear that there is a place where one could be added later. The decor seems a bit more industrial than I would normally expect from a McDonald's, with some exposed concrete walls and several of the printed wall coverings giving a more industrial appearance. I also noticed that this restaurant had some new model of PINPad I had never seen in a McDonald's before. I typically mobile order so I don't know how well that one would work. Surprisingly, execution seemed good for a newly reopened store, although I think they may have some items not in stock yet. It does appear that the drive thru is the 3-window type, although I didn't look too closely.
I see some photos on Yelp and it has the same little alcove that appears as if it could fit self serve drinks (albeit a very small space for them) as the new build in Minden, NV.

Those pinpads are in use at Popeyes and Whole Foods too.

I think their new layout that hides the counter area from the kitchen area is very poor. Also there is no service- use the order kiosk or ring a bell at the register to get a cashier? Terrible.

Also forget about a drink refill from that unmanned counter...
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