Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A is on the vanguard of fast-food drive-through operations management, regularly dispatching specialist teams to its more than 3,000 restaurants to study the minutiae of parking-lot traffic patterns and how employees hand off orders. Chick-fil-A recently notched $21.6 billion in U.S. sales, the highest per-restaurant total in the industry (even though the chain stays closed on Sundays). About 60% of its sales happen at drive-up windows.
Burgeoning demand has threatened the “fast” in Chick-fil-A’s fast-food model, writes The Wall Street Journal (Feb. 2, 2025). The “cockpit”—the hectic corner of the kitchen where orders are bagged and handed off to drivers—was growing crowded. Drive-through lanes would run out of room for cars, which sometimes spilled beyond the parking lots. Customer studies regularly gave the chain top marks for quality, accuracy and service, but its drive-throughs ranked highest in time elapsed from entry to exit.
For years, Chick-fil-A’s popularity has resulted in long lines of cars. For example, one Chick-fil-A in Rockford, Illinois was straining under a crush of customers lured by a chicken sandwich deal one recent Friday afternoon. Cars inched along 2 drive-through lanes while workers tapped in orders and others handed off bags of sandwiches and fries. Later, the store operator and OM process analysts from the chain’s headquarters hunched over a laptop studying the earlier mayhem. Security cameras in the kitchen and a drone hovering over the parking lot had captured footage of the rush, which set a new sales record for the store. At its peak, the drive-through served one car every 13 seconds, an enviable achievement for any fast-food operation. But not good enough for the company.
OM insights are reshaping Chick-fil-A’s restaurants. One recently opened near Atlanta with no dining room but 4 drive-throughs that can serve some 700 cars an hour. A second-floor kitchen prepares food that is delivered to the cars below via a system akin to a dumbwaiter.
Restaurant operators have also explored different ways to take drive-through orders. Instead of relying on speaker boxes, they stationed workers outside to take orders directly from idling cars, then call them into the kitchen through cellphones or headsets. That practice helped speed up service, and that customers appreciated more direct interaction.
Classroom discussion questions:
- What process analysis tools in Chapter 7 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text could be used to improve quality and service times?
- Why are some fast-food restaurants moving toward no indoor dining areas?