Chick-fil-A testing drive-thru restaurant where orders arrive in a chute
Chick-Fil-A will test two new restaurant concepts prioritizing digital-focused, to-go orders in a bid to offer customers a speedier ordering experience.
The fast-food chain will open a walk-up restaurant in New York City and a drive-thru restaurant in the Atlanta metropolitan area with features aimed at "cutting down wait-time[s]," Chick-fil-A Executive Director Khalilah Cooper said in a statement on Thursday. Digital orders have eclipsed traditional in-store orders in some of the company's markets, where they make up more than half of all orders. Both restaurants will open in 2024.
The Atlanta store will feature four drive-thru lanes, two of which will be dedicated to mobile order pick-ups. The lanes will run under the second story of the restaurant. But the drive-thru isn't the only thing that will be bigger. The kitchen will be twice as large as at typical Chick-fil-A locations, which will be above the drive-thru, and orders will travel through an overhead conveyor belt connected with chutes that run down the sides, according to the company.
Chick-fil-A's push to offer a faster ordering experience comes as the company looks for ways to meet high consumer demand for its sandwiches, nuggets and other products. In 2022, Chick-fil-A customers spent nearly eight and a half minutes on average waiting in the drive-thru lane, more than customers at any other popular fast-food chain evaluated in a report from customer experience solution firm Intouch Insights.
Drive-thru wait times have slowed since before the pandemic. The time customers spent waiting in drive-thrus was 45 seconds longer on average in 2022 than it was in 2019, according to QSR and Intouch Insight's annual Drive-Thru Report.