I don't understand the appeal of drive throughs?s?
In my area there are dozens of people idling for 10-15 minutes in the Starbucks drive through even though we have a municipal "no idling" bylaw to reduce emissions. The line is so long it interferes with traffic on the street. It also seems like sitting in your car inhaling CO from other people's tailpipes for 15 minutes is bad for you?
Many of the local fast food places have also switched to "drive through only" at night, which means they can get away with not having public washrooms (which are required by law when serving food). On a recent road trip my friends and I spent an hour driving place-to-place at 10pm on a Saturday trying to find a place to get a late dinner and use the toilets.
Drive-throughs also create an insane, perverse incentive for customers inside the store. Between online ordering and drive through staff are completely ignoring the actual walk-up counter traffic, because that's the only traffic where corporate doesn't track service time. I've stopped going into a lot of locations on impulse because I know they'll be understaffed and you have to book your shitty lunch 20 minutes in advance with an app. On the flip side these companies are doing promos with free delivery, where a taxi drives a burger to my house for no extra cost.
In short, I understand why companies would like drive throughs - they can have fewer staff and they game laws around the indoor dining area. Their end game is probably drive-thru only ghost kitchens with no indoor dining at all.
On a personal level I don't understand why consumers prefer drive-through (except for the feedback spiral of in-restaurant experiences becoming shit because of drive throughs). And on a policy level I don't understand why municipalities are permitting ever-larger double drive throughs with longer queues and shorter in-restaurant hours? It creates a hollowed-out neighborhood with no walkability that feels miserable.
Do you have kids? They cause about a 5-10 year period where getting into or out of a car is a 10 minute project.
I don't have kids because I value the 5-10 minutes I save when getting out of my car to interact with people face to face in a restaurant.
For me the appeal of drive through is 100% solely just that I get to listen to my own podcasts or music. I don’t carry headphones with me outside of the house so if I get to keep my podcasts going - that’s good enough reason for me.
It seems very lonely to live such a hermetic existence.
What's hermetic about listening to music you like?
There is a joy and psychological benefit to having minor, positive social interactions. If you are mostly seeing your partner and coworkers, or even working from home, you may not realize how little human interaction you have.
This is not to say that every McDonald's employee is a joy to be around. But it is good for your brain to smile at a stranger face to face and make a little small talk every now and then. It is also a skill you have to practice or it becomes hard to do.
This seems like simply a personal preference, which will be different from person to person. I WFH now, and I can go (and have gone) months without seeing another human being besides my family. I don't feel like this has been "bad" for my brain or for my personal joy or psychological wellbeing.
Eh, I hang out with people on the weekends. While shopping I want my headphones in to block all the horrible advertising they play on the speakers.
in a sense (no pun intended), you're sealing yourself off from "the real world" when you listen to podcasts/music on headphones in public.
i used to be a major headphone user but as i've gotten older, i really don't like to isolate myself like that when in public. i've started to enjoy just living in the moment a lot more than when i was younger, and i don't like to appear as antisocial as i often feel, because i actually feel a lot better about myself when i interact with the people around me instead of gliding through life trying to avoid notice.
I think there's a deeply-ingrained sense of being in love with our cars, loving to do things in our cars, etc. We made long commutes via car a thing, and I think a part of that was the drive-through - you could get things quickly on your way to/from work.
There used to be a time where the drive-through was a pretty great deal but - for all the reasons you outlined above it's losing a lot of appeal. I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head - businesses prefer drive-through because it requires less staff, less resources. You also eliminate issues with people loitering in lobbies.
There are places where drive-through/walk-up only may be the only way a restaurant will open due to perceived safety concerns. So that I kind of get but ideally, the municipality would find a way to address the actual safety of the area, or at least the perception. Sometimes areas just look dangerous but are actually fine.
But yeah I think the appeal of drive-through is dying out for a variety of reasons. We no longer see cars as convenient, we desire walkability, we value healthier food over faster food, we'd rather work less and have extra time at home to do things like cook, things like that.
I should point out I'm speaking very broadly, as an American who isn't facing poverty. My view is likely limited and skewed, there are very likely to be scenarios I'm not considering.
The question mark ("?") is used in English to denote the end of a question.
I appreciate your scholarly devotion to the language and it's diverse array of punctuation. In the future you may consider reading the letters in between the punctuation, which are often used to convey the thoughts and feelings of the author.
On a personal level I don't understand why consumers prefer drive-through
If you've got kids/dogs in the car with you, it could be a bigger hassle or not possible to go inside. This is probably a very small number of people actually using the drive through though.
When I'm on my own, I always find it a better experience to go in myself.
This makes a lot of sense and as you said probably accounts for fewer than 10% of drive through users.
Americans' cars are extensions of their bodies.
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