I’m a regular user of the drive-thru and love them. Most places I go they are faster than going inside and some places are incredibly fast. Raising Canes for example fills orders as fast as people can place and pay.
And most modern vehicles these days have the auto start/stop systems built in so at least for myself the engine doesn’t run unless the car is moving.
And as for the decline of modern civilization I see the opposite. When put into action correctly It’s more a modern triumph of productivity and efficiency. It becomes a fine tuned assembly line that can rival the best six sigma’d manufacturing lines.
Drive thrus kick ass, and those that don’t like them can shut the fuck up, park their cars, and go inside.
I totally dig drive throughs unless I need to use the restroom I never go inside and about half the time after I use the facilities I’ll still go through the drive through. I dislike the whole ordering process inside.
I don’t know much, but I do know the OP has never had sleeping infants in the backseat after heading home from a long day at work.
The perpetual 12 cars inline outside of Starbucks at noon on a Wednesday boggles my mind. Housewives with nothing else to do that day I guess.
Okay, you’re excused from this pitting.
I confess, traveling with my dog recently I did use the drive-through.
Yes, I have – well one, anyway. That’s why I made excuses early on for people with kids strapped in.
For accuracy’s sake, maybe I should change the title of this thread to:
I pit slow, inefficient drive-throughs and the people in gas-burning cars who use them for no good reason other than laziness when they could actually get quicker service by going into the restaurant.
There’s another kind of ableism that assumes the only issue is mobility.
Due to my dietary restrictions I HAVE TO check my order because a mistake could make me seriously ill or land in an ER. Not to mention the hazard to others if I have a “medical episode” while driving away after eating. Drive-thrus are NOT conducive to this and getting any sort of a correction is difficult.
If I can’t double-check my order before leaving I can not use the eating establishment. Period.
Any restaurant that is take-out only presents a barrier to me that is actively threatening to my health and safety. Inability to allow an order to be double-checked is discriminatory towards those with life-threatening dietary limitations.
Needless to say I have not been eating any sort of fast food for about a year and a half.
And while you might argue that in that case I should never subject my allergic self to restaurants, I can’t take my kitchen with me when I travel. Which I sometimes do for business or family reasons or just to take a vacation. Honestly, that’s like saying people in wheelchairs shouldn’t go anywhere. I should be able to eat in restaurants just like real people do.
I recall once eating inside of a Pollo Loco just across the parking lot from a Taco Bell drive-thru. There was a long line of cars there that wasn’t moving except for one small pickup that was bouncing up and down on its shocks. Inside was a guy literally shaking the whole vehicle in anger with a death grip on the steering wheel. In the car behind him was someone pounding the liner with their fists. In the car in front of him was a woman doing the “what’s the hold up” shrug with open palms. Sometimes the best idea is to just have a good paperback handy and go inside to eat.
A couple times in the past year, I had a hankering for food from a Taco Bell along the side of a highway that I use on long-distance trips. It was drive-thru-only because of the pandemic. Both times, the line was about 7-10 cars long. Each time, I waited a couple minutes, and in that time, the line hadn’t moved at all. I bailed out each time. If anybody had pulled up behind me in that time, I would have been fucked, as there would have been no way to escape the line.
My wife watches the pennies – an admirable trait. Where we used to live, there was a truly excellent burrito joint where we ate quite often.
When we went inside to order, we always got the correct change.
When we used the drive-thru, we frequently got shorted on our change (worth mentioning that they never gave us too much change).
Small place, so I doubt it was a single person who was just a thief and happened to serve us at the drive-thru. I think it’s just easier to get away with stealing from a customer when you know they have to handle the food you’ve just given them, and the change you’ve just returned to them … in a pretty short time frame (ie, trying to get going, trying not to hold up the line behind you).
How long does it take you to check? Is it something you can do while you’re sitting there at the window?
I don’t know that that’s “needless to say.” Some fast food places have had inside ordering/pickup.
THAT right there is the hazard I subject myself to when I get into what looks like a “short” drive-thru.
I agree with that part. There are too many poorly run fast food restaurants out there.
But for that part, how do the people know if the drive-thru that they are going to is a slow, inefficient one or a fast well run one?
I used to work in fast food, and we were usually fast enough that cars barely had to come to a stop between the menu and the window. Before credit cards, they didn’t even have to stop there either, I’d have their change already made, and swap their bills for their change, and the next window would have their order already hanging out the window.
Not only do fast food restaurants generally prioritize the drive thru, it’s usually easier to move more people quickly through the drive thru than in the lobby. The person making sandwiches has a headset on, and can start making your sandwich as soon as you start speaking, same with the person making your drink and fries.
Sometimes we’d even have outside order takers, who would walk along with your car as you placed your order. We would have service times under 60 seconds. Try getting out of your car, walking in, ordering, and getting back to your car in that time.
Open the bag, remove the item(s), unwrap the item(s), inspect the item(s), possibly re-wrap and return to the bag. And it’s unlikely that she WANTS to hold up the line of vehicles behind her and make everybody hate her (especially if she finds an error that she needs to have dealt with).
Difficult to fault her for wanting to minimize risk. And since she made a moderately long explanation of WHY she feels a need to minimize it, the conclusion IS “needless to say,” kinda.
I quit eating fast food regularly years ago (waistline / health issues), but loved it when I did and loved drive thrus. You’re paying for convenience, simple reality. It seems dumb and silly to me to call people lazy because we’re choosing to pay for the luxury/convenience of being able to get our food handed to us in our car. We’re also paying for the convenience of fast and personal travel by owning a car, we’re paying for the convenience of climate controlled air in hot or cold weather, we’re paying for the convenience of someone else cooking our food for us, whether we pick it up at the drive thru or the counter.
Paying for convenience is a significant element of our entire modern society and economy, pitting it is…stupid.
The environmental impact of idling cars has been shown to be virtually non-existent, so the environmental element of the rant is rejected out of hand.
The speed of counter vs drive-thru also is super variable based on individual locations and chain, many chains in my experience will process drive thru lines far faster than the indoor line.
Yeah, I was gonna mention dogs. Well, down to one dog now. And I can order him a Flying Dutchman! I only go to In-n-Out for fast food.
I had a friend in high school who worked at a local Jack in the Box. He worked the evening shift and was often the oldest person there. So, high jinks often ensued. And they used to time their drive-through times. He had the record at 47 minutes. I could not believe anybody waited that long. I had to assume it was a drunk that found time dilating for him.
Simple observation. How many cars in line? How many people inside?
OT, but What’s a Flying Dutchman? When I get In-N-Out for my fiancee, I get a Puppy Patty for her little poodle.
That doesn’t mean anything.
For one, you can’t always see the lobby and the line from the outside very clearly, so the observation isn’t all that simple.
And there have been plenty of places I’ve been that have had a long line outside that was moving well, and a short line inside that was very slow.
From experience on both sides of the counter, if it’s running slowly outside, it’s running even slower inside.
The drive-thru at the local McDonald’s would be pretty efficient, if not for the upselling.
Me: “Big Mac meal, please; the drink is Coke.”
Them: “Would you like McNuggets with that?”
“No.”
"“How about a cappucino?”
“No.”
“Apple pie?”
“No. Just a Big Mac meal, please.”
“That’ll be $X.YZ. Pull up to the first window.”
It seems to me that the line would move much faster if they didn’t try upselling every car.