While several chains lay claim to inventing the drive-through, many say it dates back to the 1930s when a Los Angeles franchise of a Texas chain, the Pig Stand, allowed customers to order and pick up their food from a window. “But we saw a massive accelerator and catalyst to move faster and to get drive-through really going.” “We had started working on some of the formats even prior to the pandemic,” said Andrew McCaughan, the chief development officer for Shake Shack. It will open its first drive-through this year in Orlando, Fla., and plans five to eight more through 2022. Shake Shack is experimenting with a number of new designs and plans, including walk-up windows and curbside pickup. Applebee’s is testing its first drive-through in Texarkana, Texas. Taco Bell, which last year announced plans to test a restaurant design with stadium seating for gamers to play against one another, has switched much of its focus to creating smaller restaurants with dual drive-through lanes and curbside pickup. “But with Covid, we’re seeing the dramatic acceleration of directions we were already going.” “The drive-through has been one of those places that hasn’t changed in decades,” said Ellie Doty, the North American chief marketing officer for Burger King. And the basic experience of sitting in a single line of cars, speaking into a sometimes garbled intercom and pulling up to a window to pay for your food before driving away is poised to be demonstrably altered for the first time in decades. Now, as the dining industry looks toward a post-pandemic world, many companies are betting big that digital ordering and drive-throughs will remain integral to their success. With dining room restrictions in place for much of the country during the pandemic, drive-through and pickup windows became critical ways for a variety of restaurants to remain afloat. And the vast majority of new Chipotles this year will have “Chipotlanes,” where customers can drive up to a window and pull away with preordered meals in less than a minute. Shake Shack, which has long emphasized that quality ingredients are worth waiting a few extra minutes for, will soon feature its first drive-through window. Starbucks has employees at hundreds of busy locations strolling through car lines, taking orders with hand-held devices so customers can get their caffeine fix a few seconds faster.
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