New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

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Alpha8472
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New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

Post by Alpha8472 »

On June 7, the first Taco Bell Defy restaurant opened in Minnesota. It is a 2 story restaurant with the restaurant on the second level. The bottom level has 4 drive thru lanes. Two are for mobile app pickups, 1 for delivery app drivers, and 1 traditional lane with video screens for interactive ordering.

The food is delivered by 4 food elevators. There is no in-person interaction. You just talk to an employee via video call.

This all sounds good until the food elevators break down and the employees have to run downstairs to deliver your food to your cars. Then what if you want to dine in the restaurant up top?
Last edited by Alpha8472 on June 12th, 2022, 4:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Protype Opens

Post by Brian Lutz »

My question is how they would handle cash transactions, since it appears that even the "traditional" lane operates on kiosk ordering. That said, operating completely cashless would likely simplify things quite a bit for a business, although some cities and states have enacted regulations requiring businesses to accept cash (primarily aimed at Amazon Go and it's "just walk out" stores that required payment through the app only.)
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Protype Opens

Post by Alpha8472 »

I would assume you put the cash in the food elevator and it will deliver your change. The problem is when the food elevators break down.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Protype Opens

Post by storewanderer »

Looks like they visited the Chickfila in Fairfield, CA that has had a set up kind of like this for many years... well, the food elevator anyway. You still work with a human employee whatever lane you end up in.

Maybe with 4 lanes as long as all of the food elevators don't break at once it will be okay.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Protype Opens

Post by Alpha8472 »

I saw videos on YouTube and there are problems. The Taco Bell employee had to go downstairs and hand deliver to cars. The elevators might get the orders mixed up and out of order. The only way to talk to customers is to go downstairs and talk to them in person. This has plenty of glitches since communication is difficult down on the ground level.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

Post by ClownLoach »

It's a prototype. The ego-child of some corporate executive (usually the CEO) which will be built for an ungodly amount of money almost exclusively to be labeled a success regardless of actual results. I'm surprised there isn't a logo change involved too. And once the CEO is done patting himself on the back for the phenomenal success (in his mind) of the new prototype the bean counters will quietly take him back to his office for a closed door meeting, inform him that unless he can find a way to increase sales and profit at said prototype to about 50X chain average there is no way in hell they can keep the doors open there, and the now destined to be one-of-a-kind prototype will die an undignified death via closure as soon as the first lease term is up. But if a logo change was also involved... It'll get rolled out chain wide... Try to defy that logic. It'll be a one and done.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: June 14th, 2022, 11:07 pm It's a prototype. The ego-child of some corporate executive (usually the CEO) which will be built for an ungodly amount of money almost exclusively to be labeled a success regardless of actual results. I'm surprised there isn't a logo change involved too. And once the CEO is done patting himself on the back for the phenomenal success (in his mind) of the new prototype the bean counters will quietly take him back to his office for a closed door meeting, inform him that unless he can find a way to increase sales and profit at said prototype to about 50X chain average there is no way in hell they can keep the doors open there, and the now destined to be one-of-a-kind prototype will die an undignified death via closure as soon as the first lease term is up. But if a logo change was also involved... It'll get rolled out chain wide... Try to defy that logic. It'll be a one and done.
The real new Taco Bell (not the prototype shown in all of the trade publications) is about as cheap as it gets. There is one that opened recently in Reno on Veterans Parkway. It is a tiny little box with perhaps a dozen tables inside. This is one of the cheapest built establishments I've seen, it is like Family Dollar or Dollar General pre-fab building level of cheap feeling inside. Outside looks better than a pre-fab building but inside... cheap. But, it is very functional. It does the job, there is ample prep space, parking is ample, drive through lane is more than ample.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

Post by Alpha8472 »

The prototype does not have any indoor dining. There is only a walk up ordering window on the ground floor. The biggest complaint at this Taco Bell is that the wrong order gets put in the wrong elevator. The problem is that when you make the food it is difficult to match it to the car waiting at the elevator. One order may take longer to make and another may be ready sooner.

You send down an order via the elevator when it is ready, but it is not for the car waiting at the elevator. It could be for the other car in line. There are too many mistakes.

It is so bad that they have an employee on the ground floor bringing orders back upstairs or switching them from car to car. This prototype will probably just get shut down eventually. The only way to solve this problem is to have people in a booth on the ground floor at each of the 4 lanes to read off the order and make sure it is going to the right person. That would take 4 drive thru employees.
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

Post by BillyGr »

Alpha8472 wrote: June 15th, 2022, 11:39 am The prototype does not have any indoor dining. There is only a walk up ordering window on the ground floor. The biggest complaint at this Taco Bell is that the wrong order gets put in the wrong elevator. The problem is that when you make the food it is difficult to match it to the car waiting at the elevator. One order may take longer to make and another may be ready sooner.

You send down an order via the elevator when it is ready, but it is not for the car waiting at the elevator. It could be for the other car in line. There are too many mistakes.

It is so bad that they have an employee on the ground floor bringing orders back upstairs or switching them from car to car. This prototype will probably just get shut down eventually. The only way to solve this problem is to have people in a booth on the ground floor at each of the 4 lanes to read off the order and make sure it is going to the right person. That would take 4 drive thru employees.
Or a few relatively low cost cameras. One at each order station that gets a view of the front of the car - you put the plate # in the register with the order. When car pulls up to the pick up, another camera shows the plate there, and you only put in the order that has the matching number. Pretty simple system :)
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Re: New Two Story Taco Bell Prototype Opens

Post by Brian Lutz »

I know that Wendy's locations with multiple drive thru lanes have a camera that takes a picture of the car making each order so the person at the first window can confirm which order goes with which car when charging in case they merge into the single lane out of order. I would assume McDonald's with two lanes have something similar, but I find it's more common for them to verbally confirm which order is yours, and have to correct them on occasion (although I can't recall getting a completely wrong order recently.) They could presumably do something similar here, although customers making in-app orders are given a QR code for the machine to scan when entering the pickup lane to tell the employees where to deliver it.
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