The Future Of Fast Food, Revisited

My confession from the last time I wrote about fast food still remains true: I eat a lot of fast food. In REGIS Online, Fast Food Restaurants are some of the most studied merchants in our database - as well as one of the most added by users. Clearly a lot of people in commercial real estate know the power (and demand!) of these brands and are willing to do something about it.

Taco Bell, for example, launched their new drive thru only concept a little over a year ago to keep up with digital demand. This concept - named Taco Bell Defy - has been serving customers for about a year now, and has received great reviews. Taco Bell has yet to announce another Defy concept opening anytime soon, but that might be changing fairly quickly.

Creating Competition In Commercial Real Estate

In this industry, the Quick Service Restaurant is king, and brings in a whole lot of money for both the brand and the landlord. In fact, no other QSR brings in more money than Chick-fil-A. Despite only being open 6 days a week, Chick-fil-A is raking it in with the average store making approximately $8.5 Million! Even some of the lowest performing stores - those in hospitals, businesses, malls, or without drive thrus - brought in an average of $2 Million last year. So, with all this money coming in, what is Chick-fil-A going to do with it?

Well, it seems like they're getting in the drive thru only game as well. Recently, Chick-Fil-A announced they would be building a drive thru concept similar (but not exactly the same) to Taco Bell's Defy. This new Chick-fil-A is planned for the company's home state of Georgia, with an optimized kitchen space, room for up to 75 cars in the drive thru lanes, and of course, their stellar customer service. There will be a small indoor space to pick up orders placed digitally, but there will not be a dining space inside the restaurant.

This concept is not surprising, since like many other restaurants, half of Chick-fil-A's sales came from digital orders last year. And, it only seems to be growing! Both restaurants have seen a change in the industry as well as a change in customer behavior and are adjusting accordingly.

Are Drive Thrus Really The Future Of Fast Food?

Chick-fil-A has made a big name for itself and has continued to grow its locations and technology, all while maintaining the high-quality customer service they're known for. Unsurprisingly, there are some major Chick-fil-a fans in the Atlanta, Georgia area, which makes this a great place to launch this new concept. By using store visitor data in REGIS Online, we can see some locations in the area are getting well over a million visitors a year. The top 10 most visited Chick-fil-A locations all had at least a million visitors in the last year! For comparison, the top performing Taco Bell location in Minneapolis, MN (where Taco Bell Defy is located) gets about 320K visitors a year.

These numbers point to Chick-fil-A's potential problem. While they always provide service with a smile, there are a lot of customers to get through. As millions of cars go through their drive thru every year, it might be time to start testing newer, more efficient, and more digital methods for customer satisfaction. As of right now, it's just Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A in this game, but it might be time for other brands to start considering this the new future of fast food. •

Last Modified Apr 28, 2023