Though the addition of a drive thru might help a fast casual’s bottom line and diversify customer dining options, there are several challenges in operating one. For starters, there’s the location.
“Probably the biggest challenge with drive thrus, from our perspective, is finding them,” Roddy says. “Most of our model is set up so that we try to find existing facilities, we try to find multiunit facilities, like an end cap with a drive thru, and they’re just very difficult to find.”
Similarly, Damico says Moe’s rarely uses stand alone buildings, which are the easiest means to operating a drive thru.
“The opportunity for a franchisee to do a drive thru is limited because the development that we’re doing is primarily in-line end caps,” he says. “When we do have franchisees who prefer the freestanding model, the drive thru is always [an option] and we custom design each one based on the building type that that franchisee has purchased.”
Another challenge that fast casuals must overcome in incorporating a drive thru into their operation is speed. While quick serves generally premake menu options, fast casuals tend to prepare every order fresh.
At Schlotzsky’s, Roddy says the goal is to prepare each of its hot sandwiches and pizzas in less than three minutes, a process that requires three crew members in an assembly line that Roddy calls a “well-oiled machine,” and which is kept accountable with timers.
“That can be quite a challenge when you have virtually nothing made before the customer orders, not to mention it takes literally three minutes to make the sandwich because it has to be made and it has to be put into the oven,” he says.
At McAlister’s Deli, this extended food preparation time is the primary reason the chain does not operate any drive thrus. Bill McClintock, senior vice president of operations for the 280-unit fast casual, says McAlister’s panini sandwiches, potato products, and salads require too much time to prepare to successfully operate a drive-thru window.
“We just haven’t found that at this point it’s conducive to the drive thru,” he says. “I think it all comes down to what your menu dictates. We don’t feel at McAlister’s that our menu dictates a drive thru.”
Paul Damico
President, Moe’s Southwest Grill
Paul Mangiamele
CEO, Salsarita’s
Though McClintock admits a drive thru isn’t entirely impossible in the future, McAlister’s is working instead on incorporating call-ahead pick-up windows into its model, with two such locations already opened.
Damico says that Moe’s drive-thru times average between three and four minutes. Although the menu options are not premade, burritos are designed to be assembled in as little as 30 seconds. A lot of the time concerns, he says, are in the fact that 90 percent of Moe’s orders are customized, and that does not translate to incredibly efficient drive-thru speed.
“A customer comes through and they say they want the Homewrecker; there are a lot of options for that Homewrecker: Is it black beans or pinto beans? Is it chicken, steak, ground beef, or pork? The cashier needs to go through all of those modifiers on the call,” he says.
Customization of orders is a major factor that prevents fast casuals from operating drive thrus, especially in the Mexican segment, which is dominated by brands that pride themselves on the ability to pick and choose ingredients for burritos.
For that reason Chipotle Mexican Grill does not operate drive thrus.
“The way our service model is designed showcases the food we serve and lets customers decide exactly what goes into their order, with each order made while customers watch,” Chris Arnold, director of public relations for Chipotle, said in a statement. “Simply put, we would lose that for customers going through a drive thru.”
Panera Bread, on the other hand, found some success with drive thrus, having established 30 in its 1,320-unit system. Vice president of public relations Linn Parrish said in a statement that Panera does not feel it’s been forced to compromise the fast-casual feel of the restaurant and that the company is going to continue developing drive thrus at locations as appropriate.
Atlanta Bread Co., meanwhile, has stood on both sides of the aisle. About two years after its founding in 1996, the company incorporated drive thrus as an effort to keep up with the quick serves that were priding themselves on their quick and easy systems. After growing to include about 15 drive thrus in its system, however, Atlanta Bread Co. realized that it was not an operation the brand could easily maintain, and the last of the company’s drive thrus closed last year.
Basil Couvaras, vice president and COO of Atlanta Bread Co., says that though it is something the concept might come back to in the future, the challenges in keeping up a drive thru were too much.
“One of the challenges was meeting food-prep times that drive-thru consumers were accustomed to,” he says. “They’re pretty used to driving through at popular quick serves where things are ready, and all that the handlers are doing is taking what you’ve ordered and putting it into a bag.”
Additionally, Couvaras says the drive thrus at Atlanta Bread Co. locations were accounting for only 14 to 15 percent of store sales, far below the 40 to 60 percent he says quick serves aim to earn from drive-thru operations.
In testing the drive-thru concept, the company tried several versions, even limiting the drive-thru menu to only bakery items.
“One of the lessons we learned is you can’t have a drive thru that only has a small random sampling of what’s on your menu,” he says. “The consumer has been trained to know that if it’s on your menu it should be in the drive thru.”
But lucky for Atlanta Bread Co., and perhaps for any fast casual fretting over the decision to open a drive thru, customers responded positively to the chain’s opting against the drive thru.
“Once we started closing down the drive-thru portions of those stores, we didn’t see decreases in sales,” Couvaras says. “What that told us … was that our customers were loyal enough and appreciated the product enough that they’d come in the doors to get it.”