Drive-thru orders increased during the pandemic. Here’s what follows

Last March, restaurant sales fell sharply after governors banned meals in person and consumers began working through excess stored food. But, after a few weeks, a new trend emerged, illustrated by long lines that ran around the perimeter of fast food locations.

Checkers and Rally’s was one of the many fast food companies that benefited from this change. With more than 800 locations, it is the largest chain of restaurants with double lanes in the country.

“We had the most extraordinary year last year,” said CEO Frances Allen. “We made record sales gains at the same store and created a significant boost.”

The crisis coincided with the renewal of the menu chain, helping to revive sales. To keep pace with growing demand, about two-thirds of Checkers and Rally restaurants have moved one of their lanes to handle digital and delivery orders.

After decades as a staple for fast food, treadmills have become the superstar, helping fast food chain sales return faster than those of its full-service brothers. Until December, lanes accounted for 44% of off-premises orders in the entire restaurant industry, according to the NPD group. As the distribution of the vaccine grows in the United States, the popularity of drive-thru orders seems to be strong, although industry experts predict that it will moderate some.

“I think as people get more vaccinated, drive-through orders will go down a bit, but I don’t think it will go down to previous levels, because this increased awareness of germs is here to stay, and some people are used to doing that. things are different now, “said Lisa van Kesteren, CEO of SeeLevel HX, which conducts an annual vehicle service survey.

Adrianne, a 27-year-old woman living in Wichita, Kansas, agrees. He worked at a Starbucks with a car belt for several months.

“Order before, delivery and in person may fluctuate, but drive-thru is a constant necessity,” she said.

Other drive-thru workers say that the extra stress of jobs seems unlikely to stop for several months. Randy, a 30-year-old man who works in Michigan, said he wanted to quit his job many times, and his location has a very high turnover rate. According to him, the focus shifted from connecting with customers to ensuring that orders were completed in less than a minute.

Larger volume and larger orders slowed the average travel time by 29.8 seconds, according to the SeeLevelHX 2020 study, which was conducted from June to August using secret buyers. KFC, which is owned by Yum Brands, topped the list and was one of the few chains that managed to cut times.

The American president and conceptual director of the chain, Kevin Hochman, credited the filling packages of the KFC family, which registered a double-digit increase last year. Hochman is also the interim president of the United States of Pizza Hut, the sister chain of KFC. In response to a higher average ticket, KFC added a $ 30 add-on to its menu to address the trend of larger orders.

“Packing a 12-piece bucket versus an eight-piece bucket is pretty easy to do compared to making eight sandwiches – it’s a very different model,” Hochman said, adding that other fast food chains now add higher value meals to their menus.

Hochman predicts that some traffic transitions back to KFC lobbies as consumers get vaccinated. The fried chicken chain is testing takeaways, with the expectation that their customers will look for even faster ways to get their food after the pandemic.

The transition to drive-through controls has further increased competition between the fast-food and fast-casual sectors. Chains such as Sweetgreen and Shake Shack have announced plans to add lanes. Chipotle Mexican Grill, which runs its lanes only for digital controls, said it will speed up plans to add more “Chipotlane” to its footprint.

But even before the pandemic, fast-food chains invested in their leadership bands, giving them control. McDonald’s has spent more than $ 300 million on Dynamic Yield, an artificial intelligence company that would help the company push customers to spend more. (The company is now exploring the sale of Dynamic Yield’s third-party business.)

Those investments for traffic efficiency have accelerated only in the last year. Chains such as KFC and Brands International Restaurant, Burger King, have designed new restaurant formats that highlight the access lane and demote into smaller dining rooms.

Arby’s chief operating officer, John Kelly, said the Inspire Brands chain has been working to streamline its production for the past three to five years. Many of its kitchens now operate with two sets of workers assembling controls to keep up with the flow.

“We certainly didn’t update all of our restaurants during Covid, there wasn’t enough time or manpower to do that, but we were already on the road and we accelerated this in 2020,” Kelly said. “And we will continue to modernize those in our restaurants, certainly where there is volume today, but also for the future.”

Van Kesteren pointed out that automation is another important trend stemming from the increase in drive-thru controls during the crisis. McDonald’s and White Castle are both testing artificial intelligence programs to take drive-thru commands faster and more accurately.

“Before, automation was explored and fully automated lanes and kiosks were tested, but this has greatly accelerated this,” she said.

Kelly said Arby’s is investing in technology that will be better able to inform general managers about how to customize a restaurant as traffic fluctuates. In the busiest times of the pandemic, Arby’s appointed many of its restaurant workers to focus on a single task, whether it was taking orders or filling drinks.

“So they don’t always try to catch up with where the business is going, but they’re actually overtaking,” he said. “I think we learned a lot about that during Covid and we will continue to move forward.”