Same. I basically never eat in the car unless it’s something like jerky during a road trip.
I also tend to not use drive-thru windows.
Food & ATMs, I park and walk.
Eat inside. I hate the idea of accidental mess in the car.
I’ll only eat at a fast food restaurant if I’m in a hurry. Sandwiches, burgers, fries, drink. Anything that I can eat while driving.
I always go inside. I never eat in my car - too much chance I’ll spill something or otherwise make a mess. But the fast food restaurants near me aren’t too bad.
I’ll eat inside unless I’m in a big rush, or the restaurant dining room is overcrowded and/or filthy.
There’s a nature preserve near my workplace so I often grab lunch and eat it there, in my car, and then maybe grab a nap (it’s an hour lunch). No real mess issues and I wash and vacuum the car weekly and the overall ambiance is much nicer than a fast food lobby or workplace breakroom.
Not so rare for me, but yeah the music is a good reason to sit in my car.
I keep the interior* of my car spotless. No trash stays in my car AT ALL and I vacuum once a week. My 8 year old car looks brand new.
*to be fair, I keep the exterior pretty spiffy too: I wash and wax it about once a month.
Eat inside the “restaurant”? Hell, no. Maybe it’s a restaurant by definition, but no way would I want to spend time there beyond what time it takes to get my food.
Make a mess in my car? Heh. I haul three dogs and a parrot to work and back each day. I take the dogs for a swim in the river, load them up, and head home. I can imagine a homeless hitchhiker turning down a ride in my Wrangler.
Mostly I take fast food back to my office or home to eat. If I don’t have the time for that, I’ll delay lunch and eat later.
I voted park and eat in the car, but even that would be rare. I would do that once or twice a month when I was working and wanted to stay away from the office for a while instead of eating at my desk. These days the only time I go to a fast-food place is if we’re on the road and always eat while driving. I would never eat inside a fast-food place, and don’t think I have done so in at least 30 years.
And I would love the inside of my truck to smell like french fries!
If I do go to a fast food place it’s usually because I’m in such a grim mood that I can only bring myself to talk to the speaker to order and don’t want to interact with a cheery waiter. But I don’t do fast food much except to get a sausage biscuit at either Mickey D’s or Whataburger in the morning. That would be at a time when Fresh Air is on Sirius radio, so I’ll sit in the car to listen it.
I generally take the food to go and eat in the nearest park.
For all the complaints about the interiors of fast food restaurants, I think that nearly every place I’ve been to lately has been recently renovated and usually seems nice enough. New chairs, bench seating, wood tables, bright modern lighting, etc.
Hate me for it, but the reason I don’t wanna eat in a fast-food place is primarily the other people who are eating in a fast-food place, not the seats or lighting.
I haven’t been inside a MacD in so many years. Now, I’m curious to see how they’ve changed.
The one thing I won’t do is eat driving. I hate scarfing down my food without taking the time to enjoy it.
I only need ten minutes to eat in my parked car. If that much time isn’t available then I’ll go to my appointment and eat later.
The local fast-food places are nice enough inside and have wifi and free refills on drinks. I can put my food and drink and Kindle on the table and surf the Web while I eat. If I spill something, it’s being spilled in the restaurant, and not on the interior of my car. No trash ends up in my car, unless I take a half-finished drink out to the car with me.
If I eat in my car, there’s nowhere good to set the food, I have fast food wrappers and other trash in the car, I can’t get drink refills, and I don’t have wifi. (I realize I’m an exception on that last one, but I’m not paying a thousand bucks a year to go from having Web access almost all the time, to being connected all the time.) And I’d be really pissed at myself for a long time coming if I spilled soda on my seat.
So inside wins in a slam-dunk.
For me it depends on who I am with. If I’m with friends then we may go into the restaurant but if I’m alone I would much rather eat in the car.
depends on the restaurant …I near a long strip of fast food places and restaurants and one side has more street types on it than ones across the street
the mcds no because its always crowded Abd even the non street people are grumpy and miserable
As sad as it is to eat alone in a fast food restaurant, eating in the car just seems sadder to me.
I don’t usually do either, but given the exactly scenario you gave I couldn’t come up with a third choice.
[Off topic]
A thousand bucks a year? 
When I take my kindle someplace that doesn’t have wifi, I go to the network settings on my phone (a BlackBerry Key2, but I’m pretty sure other smartphones have this option) and turn my phone into a mobile hotspot. Then to the wifi settings on my kindle to connect. When I’m done, I turn off mobile hotspot, and I’m on my way.
[/Off topic]
I agree. Plus no matter how careful I am, I’m in imminent danger of making a mess. I try not to eat in my car, but once I got tickets at the last minute from a friend for a Bob Seger concert at the Fabulous Forum. I didn’t have time to get a real meal anywhere before the concert, and I was starving, and I know how crappy the food was at the Forum. I picked up a Carls Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger and managed to eat it while driving on the 710 and 105 fwys without spilling a drop or crumb.
It was a miracle!