Do you guys have really slow/overloaded fast food in your area?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Las Vegas here. After the pandemic started, fast food started going nuts. I would drive by a fast food place and see like 15+ cars in line for the drive through, sometimes around the block. Then I’d pass another 3 fast food places with similar lines.

I get it - people couldn’t or didn’t want to eat out, but they didn’t want to cook themselves, so fast food picked up.

But it has actually gotten worse over the last year and a half. There’s a labor shortage because people don’t want to work for $10/hr when their rent has doubled in the last few years, they’re sick of being abused by stupid ass pro-covid morons who want to pick a fight with every random public-facing workers, and they’re just getting pushed to the breaking point by how fucking shitty our society has become for people at the bottom. So there’s just sort of a low level strike for shitty jobs.

I think most fast food joints are understaffed, because while I still see plenty of people lined up at the drive throughs, they’re often very, very slow, too. Much more so than they were a year ago. I’ve got into a line before that did not move one car in 10 or 15 minutes, and I just left. I went to a Burger king once that only had 3 cars ahead of me - a short line - and somehow it still took a half hour to get my food and get out of there. I’ve cut down my fast food consumption a lot just because it’s always so slow.

In fact, I have to wonder - when someone sees a McDonald’s line comically long, like 20+ cars, wrapped around the parking lot… who still gets in that line? Who is like “oh man, McDonald’s is so good that I’m willing to wait an hour to get it”?

On the other hand, Taco Bells have been consistently fast. They’re the only ones.

This isn’t a complaint, by the way. I totally support this low-key strike. I’m always happy to see a place close down because all of the employees walked out of a job. We need something like this to make any sort of progress. I’m just curious how much this is happening across the country.

Are you guys seeing the same trends out there?

2

Yeah, most of them have incredibly long lines at mealtimes. I haven’t been near a Taco Bell lately, but I do notice that the only place without much of a line is Harvey’s, and that’s because they’re always filthy and you’re crazy to eat there.

I don’t know, because it sure as hell ain’t me. And yet you see the most incredibly long lines.

What’s weird is that at Tim Horton’s the lines for morning coffee will be amazingly long, but if you just park and walk inside, you are often one of just two or three customers, and sometimes the only one.

Will long lines and a lack of staff kill some fast food restaurants? Sure, maybe. C’est la vie. We’ve lost a lot of normal restaurants, too, but there is no set-in-stone reason why we needed as many restaurants as we had. We don’t have video stores at all anymore, or 99% of the photo developers we used to have, or what have you.

3

The only place I regularly see cars backed up into the street is Dunkin’ Donuts, but it’s always been like that.

4

^^^Same where I am.

5

In-N-Out was pretty much always like that, but it seemed like when the pandemic started the line there got even longer. Albeit that probably had a lot to do with the fact that they were closed for indoor dining at the time. They had to split the drive-thru line into two lines that merged together, and even then during peak times the line often backed up into the street.

6

I haven’t noticed anything unusual in and around DC, but I don’t get out much and don’t always pass drive-throughs when I do. Definitely no lines that interfere with traffic, which is probably the only way I’d notice.

7

I’ve just been managing my expectations. When I do go, I expect to be waiting longer, and there’s probably going to be something wrong with my order. Bc the people that are still working there aren’t exactly cream of the crop.

I ordered a pizza the other day. It took two and a half hours to get delivered. When it arrived, pizza wasn’t even a little bit warm. It was cold.

8

Chik-Fil-A has incredible long lines; two lanes around the building & a wait to get into the parking lot. They have a bunch of employees outside taking orders on tablets to speed up the process but still, it ain’t nearly that good that it’s worth that kind of long line

Fast food is usually sustenance on the go. I prefer getting out of the car to stretch the legs, if only for a minute. I’m amazed at how many places are open for drive-thru only, or walk-ins pickup up for “GrubbyDashEats” only. It really pisses me off when I get out of the car to pull on a locked door, only to have 3 more cars get in the drive thru line in those few seconds.

Because VHS & film have gone the way of the Dodo bird; I haven’t heard of food going digital yet.

9

Here in the suburbs of Ontario, there’s a McDonald’s near me that is usually inexplicably busy, at least in terms of the lineup for the drive-through. The oddest thing about it is that there are at least three burger outlets very close to it, probably more, and dozens of other kinds of fast-food outlets, and any one of them would be a better choice. I have no idea what drives these people to McD’s. Name recognition? Kids’ insistence? The pandemic may have worsened the situation but the lineups were getting pretty bad even before the pandemic hit. I admit I used to go there myself on occasion, but I don’t any more because (a) the lineup is ridiculous, and (b) any of those other places are way better.

I do like the occasional McD’s breakfast, though, and their coffee is usually pretty good, but Christ, the drive-through lineups are there even in the morning! Whoever owns that franchise must be raking in a fortune!

If this has become a generalized problem I’m certainly not aware of it. The Harvey’s here is perfectly clean and makes, arguably, the best burgers around. I suspect you may be seeing a location-specific problem. Or maybe things have deteriorated since the pandemic due to staff shortages. But I hate to see a purveyor of good home-style flame-grilled burgers made to order get unnecessarily dissed because of one bad franchisee. Coincidentally I shunned Burger King for many years because the local BK where I used to live was, in fact, badly managed and often filthy. But the one here is fine, and I’ve been reminded that the Whopper with cheese is pretty good; service is much faster than Harvey’s, and the standard mass-produced Whopper is just fine to my junk-food palate.

10

A year ago, I had zero fast food restaurant apps on my cell phone. I just checked, I now have 7. Screw that waiting in line, place my order on the app, drive to the restaurant and a few minutes later, they deliver the food to my vehicle.

11

I’m not big on fast food, but in the mornings I used to go to a nearby McDonalds for coffee. It is packed now, every morning, despite being fully staffed; I go to one near an interstate that twice as far, but never has a line. I’ve often looked at the close one on my way back and seen the same cars still in line.

There’s a Wendy’s close to the warehouse where i work that was popular for luinch pick up, but everyone now says it’s had ONE person working nights for weeks; you can spend your entire lunch period waiting for your food.

12

Except In&Out, not so much here.

13

My worst experience was out with the kids, on our way somewhere, we needed food and of course couldn’t dine in, so we stopped at, I think it was a Jack in the Box. In line for a while, finally get up to the ordering spot, and there’s a sign taped on there saying $30 limit on orders because they’re short staffed. So 3 out of 4 of us got food. I mean we shared, but it was a weird way to handle it, I thought.

I have sympathy for the people working – and not working – though. Minimum wage is high where I live, but still no one wants these jobs. Either they are going to have to pay a lot more, or improve conditions more. I worked in fast food in high school, and it seriously sucked. If I could have been an Uber driver or some other “gig economy” type job instead, I’m sure I would have.

14

A Burger King near my home has closed, but I’m honestly not surprised because it wasn’t all that busy even before COVID, because it was at a wonky intersection.

15

While I am sure being short-staffed is a major reason for this, I wonder if it’s also in part to put some distance between what employees there are and the maskholes/covidiots?

16

Local fast food places are now drive-through only, very few people in line, and are still very slow. They have to be operating deep in the red.

17

In my area, a lot of the fast food places never have re-opened their dining rooms. Some you can’t even walk into the building, even for take-out. So if you want their food at all, drive-through is your only choice.

18

Most fast food restaurants here are drive-thru only, having returned to that after the last surge. I don’t know if part of that is the lower number people working there or not. I do know that the Italian place that doesn’t have a drive-thru (where I get my pizzas) never has any customers inside. The other local fast dining places, however, seem to have inside customers.

19

This all SUCKS for me. I have a total laryngectomy so I can’t talk. Usually I will write my order down and hand it to the worker inside, but it’s all drive up only now. And nobody around here has online ordering/curbside pickup.

The McRib has been out for two days, and I’m still waiting for my wife to pick me up a few. I live in Vermont, and for some reason McDonalds is the ONLY fast food in ANY town, it’s so weird.

20

McDonalds by my work has had morning lines that wrap around the building and interfere with the served drive-through customers getting out of the line since there’s incoming cars across the exit path. One morning a couple days ago, I saw the line was only at the actual ordering boards so I zipped in. It still took a good 15+ minutes to get my food, by which time the line was threatening to wrap around again.

The Portillo’s by me always had very fast service to order drive-through. They’d have two lines, each with a guy walking down and taking your order then followed by another guy taking payment, then you’d hit the window and get your food. Yesterday we went and there was a single guy manning both lines. When we finally got to the window, we still had another 15min wait while they got our food prepared.

Both of those were during busy periods. I haven’t tried getting drive-through service during more off-hours.