It seems like every fast food chain gives preference to the drive-thru patron (even if there’s only one car) over the walk-in ones? I see it every time I enter one - when I ask the restaurant’s personnel why they do this, they either ignore the question or adamantly deny it. Does anyone have any theories as to why? I speculate it’s either because: (1) If you see a buch of cars outside, you’ll drive by or (2) restaurant people assume that if you walk-in, you’re in no hurry, and will serve you slower. Any other theories, or actual restaurant policies?
The majority of profit comes from drive-thru, 60-80% of sales.
They’re scored more heavily on drive-up service because it’s more easily measured with events like how many seconds between a car pulling up to the microphone and someone pressing their talk button and saying “maytakordr?” From there, they’re measured on how long between the car reaching the window and the sale being rung up, and how long it takes to ultimately give them the order and they drive off.
While it is possible to measure similar events inside the store, it would take a secondary observer with a stopwatch to measure how long it takes from someone walking up to the counter to being greeted, etc.
My big complaint with drive-thru prefered treatment is not with the drive thru itself, but the way some places give preferences to those with CARS. There is a White Castle near my home which closes the sitting room at 11pm, but keeps the drive-thru window open all night. However, they will refuse to serve you if you WALK through the drive-thru, thus denying all night service to customers who don’t have cars. And keep in mind that this is in NYC, where roughly half the residents don’t own vehicles!
WAG: As a population, drive-thru folks tend to be in bigger hurries and have a greater expectation of prompt service than walk-up folks. Also, big drive-thru lines clog up the property more than big walk-up lines.
When I worked fast food, we were told to serve customers at a drive:walk ratio of 2:1
Drive through customers don’t stay and occupy a table taking up valuable space and time.
Also cars mean no cleaning tables, sweeping floors, emptying trash cans. Drivers pay their money, take their stuff and go.
It’s more profitable to shift the effort to where you can make more money more quickly.
To support what gotpasswords said, at the Wendy’s where my friend used to be a manager, drive through service times were automatically recorded by the register system and sent to HQ. Awards were granted to stores with low average service times, and fines were levied against those with high average service times. No such measurements were taken for walk-in customers. So the corporate policy created a financial incentive to ignore the guy at the counter.
If the drive through line slows down, you have a stack of, say, 20 cars clogging up the parking lot (or nearby street).
You don’t have as much of a noticible mess with a line of 20 people standing in the store.
I can understand not keeping the dining room open as long as a drive-thru window. This allows the staff to clean the entire dining area several hours before the store is closed for businesses.
I think there are some advantages to this from the perspective of the staff, who get to have more things done earlier so they can get the place closed and get out of there.
From a business perspective it’s possibly a questionable tactic–and it’s asinine to not have a “walk-up” window if you do have such a policy in an area with heavy pedestrian traffic (I understand the liability reasons that prevent being able to serve walk-up traffic at a drive-thru window, but adding a walk-up window is not entirely unheard of or very difficult.)
I took my wife’s scooter through the drive-through of a local Burger King acouple of years ago. I guess the weight wasn’t enough to activate the treadle switch at the ordering post, so no-one served me even after I sat there for five minutes. Finally I drove up to the window, and tried to place my order there. The gal refused to take it; said I had to do it the “normal” way or come into the building. I explained that no-one had helped me when I tried it the “normal” way. She said Yeah, she had seen me sitting there (I guess they have CCTV), but figured that I was just hanging out.
WTF?!?!?
In my experience, it’s faster to go in and order when there’s more than 3 or 4 cars ahead of you in the drive-thru.
Also, in my experience, there are people who work the drive-thru window and people who work the counter. Different people. I’ve never noticed a delay in getting my order taken and being served because of the drive-thru.
I thought most drive-thrus don’t allow walk-ups. Is this not the case?
This is it pretty much in a nutshell. They’re promoting the use of the drive-thru by serving them quicker. A drive-thru customer is extremely low maintenance low cost. Lower risk of having someone injure themselves on the premises, they take their trash with them, you don’t have to clean up behind them, they’re not putting wear and tear on your doors/floors/seats/tables/bathroom/etc.
And this, my friends, is why I started saying “No, thank you, I’ll wait here,” at the local McDonald’s drive thru when every time I ordered, they’d take my money and direct me to wait in one of the parking lot spaces for someone to bring my food out. Not only did it take longer for me, but they got happy tiny numbers in to their district manager while in reality giving truly shitty customer service. I’d sit there like a squatter and back up their whole line for more accurate drive-thru numbers.
(And for the inevitable, “har-har, I bet someone spit in your food!” comment: please, remember that I was ordering and eating food from McDonald’s. If one is happy eating Quarter Pounders, one ought not be too delicate to eat a loogie with it and suffer no harm.)
Apart from the profitability, I think it’s the right priority, speaking as a customer. If I’m using the drive up window, time is critical for me and I want service that is as fast as possible. If I’m walking up to the counter, I’m either on foot in the general area, or have already taken up time parking my car and getting out of it. Apparently time is not as critical to me in this case, and having to wait at the counter isn’t going to bother me as much.
I thought so, too. I’ve always thought it was a security and insurance risk to let people walk up to windows. It’s easier for a walk-up person to reach through the window nefariously than someone in a car. It’s also easier to be hit by a car when walking through a drive-thru.
I’m sure all the customers behind you appreciated it.
Or you’re in the drive thru because you are too lazy to get out of your car to walk in and order.
I’m serious.
That’s why I use the drive thru most of the time. I’m in no big rush, but I don’t FEEL like parking the car and walking in. I think this is the case for most people going thru the drive thru (other than between maybe 11am and 1pm during lunch rush where people have limited, clocked, lunch times).
Heck, I’d use the drive-through and eat while parked in the lot if there was a good radio show on, or the restaurant looked noisy and crowded, or if if I just felt like it, dammit.
Oh, I’m sure they didn’t, initially. But I hope that some of them did, long term, when the managers were fired, new people were hired, and they painted over the three parking spots marked “Drive-Thru Only”. No one’s asked to park and wait anymore - we all sail through easy peasy now that there are no longer chimpanzees running the place.
(Unfortunately, I think the chimps all got jobs at our local Target - the only continually messy, disorganized understaffed Target I’ve ever seen.)