Chick-fil-A is one of the most popular fast-food restaurants in the country.
The chain is constantly looking for ways to keep its edge against the competition.
And Chick-fil-A made one major change that put the rest of fast food on notice.
Chick-fil-A is turning to drones and game film to make the drive-thru faster
Chick-fil-A is known for having one of the fastest and most efficient drive-thru lines of any fast-food restaurant.
The line can be out to the street and Chick-fil-A employees manage to get customers through in a timely manner.
Employees with tablets will wander up to cars to get their orders before ushering them through.
Americans altered their eating habits during the pandemic.
More people are going through the drive-thru versus going inside to eat.
The dining room is going out of style as customers grab their food to take with them.
Chick-fil-A is trying to make its drive-thru lane even faster as more of its customers use it.
Rockford, Illinois Chick-fil-A operator Philip Everett and employees from the chain’s corporate headquarters watched drone and security camera footage of a record sales day at the store on a laptop.
The Rockford location served one customer every 13 seconds at one point during the day.
Everett thought that his store could beat that performance.
He and the Chick-fil-A corporate employees identified problems that they thought slowed down the line.
The Wi-Fi for the ordering tablets didn’t extend far enough and one drive-thru worker was shouldering too much of the load.
“We hadn’t understood half of what our different challenges were,” Everett stated.
Chick-fil-A tries to perfect the art of a speedy drive-thru line
Many Chick-fil-A locations would have long drive-thru lines during lunch and dinner rushes that would have cars lined out into the street.
Operators would climb on the roof to study the traffic patterns of the drive-thru line.
Now, drone footage combined with a camera in the kitchen is helping Chick-fil-A determine what it can do to speed up the drive-thru.
Operators will break down footage trying to find a way to make things more efficient.
“Once you get started, it’s only a matter of time before there will be another and different bottleneck,” Chick-fil-A executive Will McFaddin told the Wall Street Journal.
Chick-fil-A opened a concept store in the Atlanta area last year that features a kitchen on the second floor where orders are lowered down to cars in an attempt to speed up the drive-thru.
The location has no dining room, instead using four drive-thru lanes.
It’s been able to move 700 cars in an hour through its drive-thru.
Chick-fil-A started in indoor mall food courts before building its first location with a drive-thru in 1993 in Greenville, South Carolina.
The chain ditched ordering a speaker to have employees take orders directly from customers in 2012.
McFaddin said that Chick-fil-A began breaking down film like an NFL team in an effort to speed things up.
“We can break down drive-through game film just like they break down football game film,” McFaddin said.
The Rockford location was able to increase drive-thru orders by 50% since studying film in 2022.
Rockford regular Scott Weir said that Chick-fil-A said the food and service made long waits in the drive-thru worth it.
“Generally I do not care for drive-throughs at all,” Weir stated. “But if I’m going to go through one, this is the one to go through.”
Chick-fil-A is turning speedy drive-thru service into a science.
