With a seating area around one-half the size of its comparable store in Starke, Keystone Heights’s Popeye’s Chicken is following a national trend emphasizing the drive-through over dining in.
Industry experts said the COVID-19 Pandemic changed customer behavior at fast-food outlets, and that change appears to have stuck. A report from Techonmic said drive-through traffic at restaurants increased by 30% from 2019 through 2022, and the number of people eating inside fast-food outlets fell by 47% during the first half of 2023 compared to 2019.
Companies are responding to the trend by opening drive-through-only outlets, led by coffee shops Scooter’s, Dutch Bros., and Seven Brew. Established drive-through-only coffee shops like Ellianos are also expanding.
Taco Bell is experimenting with drive-through-only sites. Chick-fil-A plans to open a two-story, four-lane drive-through in Atlanta that uses conveyor belts to deliver food to drivers and can handle 75 cars simultaneously. A recent New York Times story said Popeyes Chicken officials are reacting to the trend by cutting the size of their dining areas.
Companies are also developing artificial intelligence applications that can take orders in either English or Spanish.
