Why the Chick-fil-A Drive-Thru Is Speedier

At a Rockford Illinois Chick-fil-A drive-thru, employees took three minutes to prepare an order for “two teas, an eight-count nuggets, a banana pudding milkshake, kale crunch salad and waffle fries.”

The company was pleased.

Although Chick-fil-A is the slowest fast food drive-thru, it’s a favorite.

Chick-fil-A’s Drive-Thru Speed

In a front page article, the Wall Street Journal explained Chick-fil-A’s “Quest To Make Fast Food Faster.” Focusing on a Rockford Illinois restaurant, a specially mobilized speed team replayed kitchen videos and drone images of a busy Friday afternoon. Although the restaurant served a car every 13 seconds, they thought an 11 or 12 second pace was possible.

Years ago, they found (counterintuitively) it was faster for people to take orders and call them in to the kitchen. But then they had to figure out how to keep order takers cool in hot weather and guarantee the friendliness that made diners happy. Specially designed cooling vests were one answer. For the Rockford restaurant, one recommendation was more order takers. They also added a service door that sped up worker access to the drive-thru.

In its most recent survey, QSR gave Chick-fil-A top marks for accuracy, quality, and service but as in the past, not for speed.

2024 QSR Drive-Thru Report

Asked why they go to the drive-thru, past QSR survey participants have said “Convenience” with “Speed of Service” a distant second. Asked what could make them return, order accuracy was the top answer. However, since Covid, drive-thru has changed. According to QSR, customer service and hospitality ticked up.

Ranking

As always, ranking can be misleading. For example, Chick-fil-A is a dismal #10 with service and wait time. But, if you do some dividing by the number of cars, you discover the wait is because of its popularity. In the #1 spot, Chick-fil-A’s per car wait time was 139.4 seconds. McDonald’s was #3 at 237.7 seconds.

Meanwhile, Chick-fil-A was at the top of the accuracy list (tied with McDonald’s), #1 for the “taste of the main item, and it led the overall satisfaction tables:

Our Bottom Line: The Factors of Production

Whether speed studies look at kitchen flow reconfiguration or order taking or the number of drive-thru lanes, it really is just the productivity of fast food land, labor, and capital.

So returning to our title, as economists, Chick-fil-A is faster because of their factors of production.

My sources and more: Thanks to the Wall Street Journal for reminding me it was time to return to fast food drive-thru facts. From there, the QSR 2024 report had it all. I am also delighted to report that effective wayfinding (one of my favorite jobs) helped drive-thru efficacy.