I can almost guarantee that they make orders in the order they are received, more or less. So door dash gets their orders first, because they ordered online before they showed up. Then the drive thru orders get made before yours because there are 4 cars in line between the order kiosk and the window - they already ordered, and are waiting for their order to be filled before you walked in the door. For some reason, there is always someone in the drive thru line who is ordering for their whole office or a Mormon family or something.
The drive thru has 2 bottlenecks. Ordering and payment/delivery. Thus, the drive thru will have a much more consistent pace - there is always someone waiting to order, and always someone waiting to have their food handed to them. Since this is the case, there is always someone assigned specifically to this task, sitting in the drive thru window with a mic on. The cash registers, on the other hand, are far more efficient. Ordering and payment happen in the same step, and food is delivered simply by putting it on the counter. Multiple registers mean multiple orders can be taken at once. This means the line inside can be cleared quickly, which means it is less consistent, which means the staff often forgets to check it - especially since staff taking orders will quickly reallocate to making orders once the line is cleared. Add to this, taking orders inside is when a staff member must interact face-to-face with a customer - well known as the least enticing part of any customer service job. So it is easy for a staff member to see customers at the till and procrastinate on taking their orders, since there is more enjoyable work to be done.
There isn’t some kind of conspiracy to make walk-in customers’ experience as bad as possible. Fast food restaurants are evil capitalist money making machines, and their incentive is to make you as happy as possible per net dollar earned. If you really want to get your order fast, just order online before you show up. Then walk in the door and grab your order off the counter like a door dasher. If you insist on getting your order from the counter, realize that you are still getting your order faster than you would in the drive thru - you are just suffering from the illusion that they are prioritizing the drive thru since you aren’t counting the cars in line that ordered before you.
I know there’s a simple explanation for it. But there’s another simple solution: if you are in person, you get service first. You took the time to enter the restaurant and can see the service being performed - so you should get priority.
if you are in person, you get service first. You took the time to enter the restaurant and can see the service being performed - so you should get priority.
Again, fast food restaurants are the physical manifestation of platonic capitalist greed. Please explain your theory on how this change would improve profitability, and why such a change would be worth the risk it imposses when the existing system has been working for decades.
Thanks, MBA textbook answer. The reality is people dont like being treated badly. If you treat them badly, especially in person, they tend to avoid your service. It’s hard to quantify so bad MBAs don’t bother to think about that when they get in charge of big businesses and then they proceed to shit all over everyone.
Right, but walk in customers aren’t being treated badly. They are being treated quite fairly. They walk in, place their order, and get their spot in the food preparation queue. When they walk out, they saved time relative to how quickly they would have gotten their food if they waited in the drive thru line. Like, if McD’s closed their drive thru and had everyone go inside, you would have to wait longer for your food, because you wouldn’t be able to cut in front of the tail end of the drive thru.
Like, we’re on fuckcars, so “cars bad”. And as a subscriber here, I approve that message. I’m not a huge fan of McDonalds, either. But as I see it, your complaint seems to be that McDonalds isnt serving you well because you have to wait in line, even though you can’t see the physical line in front of you. Like, yeah, there aren’t other people physically standing in front of you in line in the restaurant, but they placed their orders ahead of you, so they will probably get their orders before you. I feel like this is pretty straightforward.
I’ve been places where it seems people who order their stuff in the store but to-go still consistently get their food in half the time as people who ordered earlier but ordered it dine-in.
I can almost guarantee that they make orders in the order they are received, more or less. So door dash gets their orders first, because they ordered online before they showed up. Then the drive thru orders get made before yours because there are 4 cars in line between the order kiosk and the window - they already ordered, and are waiting for their order to be filled before you walked in the door. For some reason, there is always someone in the drive thru line who is ordering for their whole office or a Mormon family or something.
The drive thru has 2 bottlenecks. Ordering and payment/delivery. Thus, the drive thru will have a much more consistent pace - there is always someone waiting to order, and always someone waiting to have their food handed to them. Since this is the case, there is always someone assigned specifically to this task, sitting in the drive thru window with a mic on. The cash registers, on the other hand, are far more efficient. Ordering and payment happen in the same step, and food is delivered simply by putting it on the counter. Multiple registers mean multiple orders can be taken at once. This means the line inside can be cleared quickly, which means it is less consistent, which means the staff often forgets to check it - especially since staff taking orders will quickly reallocate to making orders once the line is cleared. Add to this, taking orders inside is when a staff member must interact face-to-face with a customer - well known as the least enticing part of any customer service job. So it is easy for a staff member to see customers at the till and procrastinate on taking their orders, since there is more enjoyable work to be done.
There isn’t some kind of conspiracy to make walk-in customers’ experience as bad as possible. Fast food restaurants are evil capitalist money making machines, and their incentive is to make you as happy as possible per net dollar earned. If you really want to get your order fast, just order online before you show up. Then walk in the door and grab your order off the counter like a door dasher. If you insist on getting your order from the counter, realize that you are still getting your order faster than you would in the drive thru - you are just suffering from the illusion that they are prioritizing the drive thru since you aren’t counting the cars in line that ordered before you.
I know there’s a simple explanation for it. But there’s another simple solution: if you are in person, you get service first. You took the time to enter the restaurant and can see the service being performed - so you should get priority.
Again, fast food restaurants are the physical manifestation of platonic capitalist greed. Please explain your theory on how this change would improve profitability, and why such a change would be worth the risk it imposses when the existing system has been working for decades.
Thanks, MBA textbook answer. The reality is people dont like being treated badly. If you treat them badly, especially in person, they tend to avoid your service. It’s hard to quantify so bad MBAs don’t bother to think about that when they get in charge of big businesses and then they proceed to shit all over everyone.
Right, but walk in customers aren’t being treated badly. They are being treated quite fairly. They walk in, place their order, and get their spot in the food preparation queue. When they walk out, they saved time relative to how quickly they would have gotten their food if they waited in the drive thru line. Like, if McD’s closed their drive thru and had everyone go inside, you would have to wait longer for your food, because you wouldn’t be able to cut in front of the tail end of the drive thru.
Like, we’re on fuckcars, so “cars bad”. And as a subscriber here, I approve that message. I’m not a huge fan of McDonalds, either. But as I see it, your complaint seems to be that McDonalds isnt serving you well because you have to wait in line, even though you can’t see the physical line in front of you. Like, yeah, there aren’t other people physically standing in front of you in line in the restaurant, but they placed their orders ahead of you, so they will probably get their orders before you. I feel like this is pretty straightforward.
I’ve been places where it seems people who order their stuff in the store but to-go still consistently get their food in half the time as people who ordered earlier but ordered it dine-in.