McDonald’s – The Future of Fast Food?
So, I get out of summer school today to go eat lunch. Wendy’s, long line; Whataburger, long line; Chick-Fil-A, extremely long line; McDonald’s, 4 cars? Maybe they’re having problems due to the massive power outages we’ve been having, but I went over there since I figured I could get my food faster.
Yeah, it went faster, but I was very impressed by the system they have set up. Instead of using the normal speaker, there were 2 women standing outside with PDAs in their hands. 2 cars at a time would give their order, and it would be transmitted wirelessly into the kitchen. Then, they had a manager with a money belt standing near the first window so that both cars could pay at the same time. Then, each of the cars head to the second window to get their food right as the next set of cars is coming around. No wonder there’s no line, even Chick-Fil-A’s dual lane system doesn’t work as well (or else they’re about 100x as popular).
Still, the point remains that I think this is an awesome use of technology and that more restaurants should make use of features like this. Not just fast food, but also places like Chili’s and other sit-down restaurants. Waiter is ready to take your order? He sends it back to the kitchen to speed up the process. Need a refill on that drink? Give something to the customers so that they can signal when they need one. If restaurants started to embrace technology with ideas like this, I’d gladly pay a few extra dollars each time I went there to help support the costs. 10 years from now, no telling how we’ll be getting our food, but I can assure you that it will rely on technology much more than it does now.
hey this is gotcha. well just wanted to letcha know if you didnt that when lines get really long at in and out burger they kick out around 2 people with pdas in the drive threw line so just incase you didnt know thats been around for a while.