It’s a given that I’ll be going to the McDonald’s that’s a mile or two from my house whenever the grandkids are over. That’s 3-4 times/month.
When it’s just me and my husband, it’s Culver’s. Our Friday tradition is Culver’s for dinner. Since COVID though, I skip the drive-thru and go in. The drive-thru line has at least 25 cars wrapped around the entire parking lot every time I go. I’ve sat in that line a few times only because the store was not allowing anyone inside. It’s at least a half hour ordeal (Culver’s is the slowest fast food). I can park, go in and be out within 10 minutes. I don’t get why everyone is in that drive through line. There’s usually only 2 or 3 customers inside the store.
I’d guess the taco bell that was halfway between my house and campus for 4 years in college. I still live within 20 miles of it and have for 7 of the last 20 years since college. I’m probably close to 100 times.
When my husband and I started dating, both of his sisters were working at McDonalds. So we ate at that McDonalds probably once every weekend for 2 years.
Last time I was in a drive-thru was September 2019. Starbucks.
I had the same reaction seeing Arby’s mentioned multiple time.
It’s very rare* that I go to a restaurant that has a drive thru**. That’s not to say I always make healthier food choices than most, it’s that I’m more likely to eat at a hot dog/gyros or taqueria or egg foo young or BBQ or bar/chicken wing kinda place. Come to think of it, with the exception of my local cheap Ameri-Chinese place a few times a year, carryout food in general seldom comes home with me.
I avoid bank drive thrus, too.
*Well, prepandemic. I haven’t patronized a restaurant at all since last March.
**Portillos is a possible exception, though I’ve never used their drive thru and wouldn’t say I’m a regular patron anyhow.
Checkers drive-thru in East Atlanta… it was my first house, the neighborhood was sketchy, and that was the only place to get hot good food in a hurry. I probably ordered there at least a hundred times as a bachelor.
I also wore out the Starbucks close to my office for 4 years, probably a hundred visits there as well.
In-n-Out. I can probably count on one (at most two) hands any other drive-throughs I’ve used – Carl Jrs, Taco Bell, KFC.
I mostly ate In-n-Out when I was working. Get a burger, fries, shake. Eat the fries in the car on the way back to work, then, eat the burger and drink the shake at my desk when I got back. They finally starting putting In-n-Outs on the West Side 20 (?) years ago. Now, I only go to the drive-thru at our local one. It’s fast. Even when the lines is stretched out onto the street, I rarely wait more than 5-7 minutes.
Most corporate fast food is so unappealing to me , and as jnglmassiv said, I have so many other choices of independent places that are vastly better, that I just don’t go to them. I think I mentioned here earlier that I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in probably 30 or 40 years, because YUCK.
I think there are only two possibilities. The first is the Burger King somewhat near the house where I grew up. When I got a car, going to the drive through became a possibility and my then-future girlfriend worked there for a bit.
The other possibility is the Taco Bell/KFC near my current house of eight years. My wife loves Taco Bell and I occasionally like fried chicken, so it’s a good compromise for a lazy no-cooking night.
In either case, the total number of trips is probably around a dozen.
I’ve never been a drive-thru fan at all. Might have been through one a half dozen times in my life before COVID. Then for a few months, I had to go to the drive-thru at Dunkin every morning as the inside was closed. But it was always busy and I said the heck with waiting in line for 15 minutes to get a damn regular coffee with cream/sugar, so I bought my own 5 cup coffee pot and make it at home.
Probably a place called The Charco-Burger in Anchorage, AK when I was a teen in the 60s. Back when a young lady would come to your car to take your order.
That’s not technically a “drive-through” I guess, so second choice would be the Anchorage A&W. I don’t eat food from drive-throughs any more, so nothing recent.
I used to eat at my hometown’s Sonic at least three times a week.
I moved to a big city after college. There’s several Sonic restaurants and none seem as good. I eat at one location once a week. It’s close to my grocery store. I like shopping and having a meal on the way home. Sonic sells tater tots. You can’t get them at the other burger chains. I used to love Frito Pies at Sonic. It’s been dropped from the menu.
Almost certainly it was a Burger King Drive thru on route 80 outside of New Haven CT. Our dog hated to go in the car, so we decided to show her it wasn’t so bad. We went to the drive-through to get lunch and got her plain hamburgers., three of them as she was a bit dog. Our son liked it so much we continued to do this for many years. We’d go in a mini-van so there was lots of room in the back for dog and son.
The dog soon learned how to count to three. We’d pull the hamburger apart and leave it on the wrapper for her. After she’d had three, she’d lie down in the back.
ETA: My wife informs me that we usually didn’t go to the drive through, but I’d go into the place and bring it out as take out – sorry.
Most likely the Dunkin Donuts by my kids school a couple years ago. Other than that one, there are/were no drive thrus I go/went to with any sort of real regularity. There’s also the McDonald’s by my house that I’ve lived near for at least 20 years, but I suspect those two years when my kid was at that school had the most drive-thru visits lifetime, with about 40-50 total.
Eons ago (like in the 90s) when we were still in Florida and I was working aboard NAS Jacksonville, there was a Hardee’s on 17 where I’d stop on my way to work many mornings to get a chicken biscuit. Most places we lived, there were no convenient drive-thru places, or they just didn’t appeal. Mostly, the didn’t appeal applied.
