Drive-through phenomenon Once an afterthought, fast-food drivethrough windows have long since replaced dining rooms as the facet that drives business.
Posted on Sunday, January 4, 2009
Sunday photograph by Sarah Nader Cars backed up at the Chick-fil-A's drive-through on South Walton Boulevard in Bentonville Friday afternoon. Fast food drive-through's account for up to 80 percent of a restaurant's business up from as little as 25 percent 15 years ago.
BENTON COUNTY - To suggest there may be children who know every item on a McDonald's menu but have never set foot inside one would have been laughable once upon a time. But if there are a few children who fit that category, they would certainly be able to describe exactly how the drive-through menu board is set up.
In fact, they'd probably be able to explain the dual drive-through lane system down to a science. And it wouldn't surprise Bill and Walter Mathews.
As owners and operators of 30 McDonald's restaurants across the region, the Mathews brothers are closer to the McDonald's pulse here than anyone. But even they admit to being stunned when they stop to think how far drive-throughs have evolved.
"Over the 30 years we've been in the business, the evolution of the drive-through has been nothing short of dramatic," Bill Mathews said. "There was a day McDonald's had a drivethrough window almost as an afterthought. You'd do maybe 25 percent of your business through the window, if that. Even just a handful of years ago, the drive-through only accounted for just over half our business."
But those days appear to be over, as significantly more Big Macs, Kid's Meals, double cheeseburgers and McNuggets pass through the drive-through window than over the counter at McDonald's restaurants across northwest Arkansas and the rest of the country.
"I'd say the company averages 65 to 68 percent of its business at the drive-through," Bill Mathews said. "Even at our McDonald's on South Walton Boulevard, where there's a big playland inside, we do about 70 percent of our business through the drive-through. At breakfast, we sometimes do over 80 percent at the window."
That has led to the birth of the dual-lane drive-through, the most experienced employees being placed at drive-through windows rather than at the front counter. In fact, drive-through equipment and technology are continually being upgraded at fast-food restaurants across the country. No restaurant wants to lose its edge at the drive-through because, without it, sales would likely plummet. America wants everything fast - so fast that it's become an inconvenience, in many cases, to step inside.
And it's not just McDonald's.
In May, customers who entered the drivethrough lines at the Chick-fil-A restaurant at 4001 W. Walnut St. near the Scottsdale Center in Rogers were greeted at their car doors by an employee holding a hand-held drive-through ordering device. Chick-fil-A had already been named "best in drive-through" by Quick-Service Restaurant Magazine four of the past five years, but owner Scott Clark's location was one of just 25 Chick-fil-As in the nation testing the new device that's aimed at clearly positioning the chain as the fastest hand anywhere.
"There's been a tremendous reception for this," Clark told The Daily Record in May. "It's quite an investment, and Chick-fil-A is just testing them out now, but I can't see why this device wouldn't quickly find its way into a lot more of our restaurants across the country. We've had 150-plus cars through our drivethrough in one hour. Think about that. That's a matter of seconds per car."
Clark said his two Chick-fil-As - on Walnut Street and at Pleasant Crossing in Rogers - do about 60 percent of their business at the drive-through. Before moving to northwest Arkansas, Clark operated Chick-fil-As in Memphis and Little Rock. He said the first Chickfil-A drive-through wasn't constructed until 1984, and even then, the drivethroughs did not become extremely popular until the early 1990s.
"People eat out more," Clark said. "They're on the run. Drive-throughs have become a necessity of life. More of our business takes place outside than it does inside."
According to U.S. Beef Corp., the largest franchisee of Arby's restaurants, one of the leading reasons the Arby's at 1200 N. Walton Blvd., was torn to the ground and rebuilt in the past year was to redesign its drive-through. Anyone who was used to frequenting that particular Arby's knows it was tight quarters in the drivethrough line, oftentimes having to wait on nearby Tiger Boulevard or, worse yet, bustling North Walton Boulevard.
According to Bill Mathews, drivethroughs have become such a crucial part of fast-food restaurant business that, in addition to dual-lane ordering boards, most McDonald's have installed cameras that actually take a photo of each vehicle to display on the cash-register monitors. The hope is that it will help cut down on orders being handed out to the wrong cars during peak business hours.
"Drive-throughs have affected everything down to the design of the buildings," Bill Mathews said. "We used to construct dining areas with seating for 100 to 120. The new McDonald's we just opened (on the Bentonville/Bella Vista line) only has 68 seats. I wouldn't be surprised if the next one has even fewer. They just don't get used as much anymore."
The real eye-opener, according to Bill Mathews, came when several of his McDonald's locations temporarily shut down the dining rooms to build the new McCafe stations.
"I figured we'd lose 35 percent of our business when we temporarily closed our dining rooms to add the McCafes," Bill Mathews said. "We only lost 10 percent. That, to me, is amazing. But it's the truth. That's how big a deal the drive-through has become. It's almost like no one noticed the dining room was closed."
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