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December 16, 2024
McDonald’s Tests New ‘On the Go’ Restaurant: Are Fast-Food Dining Rooms on Borrowed Time?
Nostalgia abounds for many Americans who grew up eating a Happy Meal beneath the Golden Arches. Whether you’re old enough to remember McDonaldland Playland — including the Officer Big Mac jail cell and the Hamburglar swing — or more attached to the McDonald’s PlayPlaces, complete with ball pits, you likely made many memories through birthday parties and casual visits with family.
Now, McDonald’s has announced a prototype restaurant that forgoes the dine-in experience entirely, as Restaurant Business reported.
McDonald’s ‘On the Go’ Restaurant in Los Angeles Launches
Testing out a new concept, the first of its kind on U.S. soil, McDonald’s has launched an “on the go” restaurant in Los Angeles.
What makes this restaurant different from all of the others dotting the American landscape? The Los Angeles-based test restaurant does not feature dine-in service whatsoever, skipping the traditional lobby in favor of speedy drive-thru service — complete with an entirely separate mobile order pickup window as well as one other major innovation: an array of lockers for delivery order pickups.
This means that those working for various partner delivery apps could find themselves headed to a locker instead of the service counter to pick up ordered meals. While this service has already gained ground in international markets, it’s the first time McDonald’s has tested the locker option stateside.
1st ever…
— McFranchisee (@McFranchisee) December 13, 2024
This week a @McDonalds in Los Angeles (I wonder why…🤔) opened up the first “on the go” $mcd.
It appears to be:
Drive thru focused
No lobby
Mobile pickup window
McDelivery lockers
The lockers are a big deal because they have not been approved for the US… pic.twitter.com/sFXHYJbUgT
X user McFranchisee, who first broke the news of the new prototype opening its doors, appeared enthused over the news while also speculating as to why Los Angeles would have been chosen as the test market. In subsequent X posts, they indicated that their own McDonald’s location did 80% of its business via drive-thru.
A second anonymous poster claiming to be a franchisee agreed with the move toward drive-thru-only service — particularly given changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
McDonald’s Joins Chick-fil-A, Burger King, and Taco Bell in Embracing Drive-Thru Over Dining Room Service
As Eat This, Not That! pointed out, dining room service requires a great deal of space, and in an era that is seeing fast-food eat-in sales decline steeply, it may soon be the end of the line for lobby dining in quick-service restaurants.
Restaurant Business continued to say that McDonald’s was not alone — nor the first — to test the waters concerning a move to drive-thru-centric operations. Burger King and Taco Bell have already dipped into these waters, and Chick-fil-A opened a two-story elevated drive-thru restaurant south of Atlanta in August.
Like the McDonald’s “on the go” concept restaurant, Chick-fil-A’s Atlanta operation also removed dine-in capabilities from its plan.
According to a separate Eat This, Not That! report, the closure of fast-food dining rooms is a growing trend across the industry, both for fast-food and fast-casual businesses. In addition to McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell, the outlet named Schlotzsky’s, Wingstop, Panera, Portillo’s, IHOP, Del Taco, KFC, and Chipotle as moving toward a more futureproof drive-thru model. Many restaurants are making room for curbside pickup locations and drive-thru lanes by shrinking the sizes of dining rooms, if not getting rid of them altogether.
Discussion Questions
Will fast-food dining rooms eventually be phased out entirely?
What can be done to encourage guests to visit fast-food restaurants for a sit-down experience, and is this desirable in the first place?
What obstacles remain to moving toward an entirely drive-thru and/or mobile order and delivery-based fast-food operations model?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Gary Sankary
Retail Industry Strategy, Esri
Dick Seesel
Principal, Retailing In Focus LLC
Melissa Minkow
Director, Retail Strategy, CI&T
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Fast food dining rooms will probably not soon become only a memory, however, there is little doubt that there will be significantly fewer of them with each passing year.
The drive-though format is far more profitable than dining rooms. Businesses can get by with just a fraction of the cost and overhead, with more robots than humans, much less maintenance and mess, less liability, and less expensive operation.
Inflation, advanced technology, and radically high salary demands that do not fit the fast food business model have all contributed to speeding up the trend.
The growth of “on the go” isn’t even slightly surprising to me. I am not personally a fan, but judging by the drive-thru lines at my local Dunkin’ Donuts, I’d say “on the go” is huge. I have 5 DD’s within 15 minutes of my house, and no matter what time of day they all have drive thru lines that extend into the street. Always…no matter what time of day. Ditto Starbucks. So how could McDonald’s not be testing it?
The flip side is remembering that Starbuck’s used to be referred to as “the third place”. A leisurely hangout. Was the demise of that moniker Starbuck’s fault, or a societal shift to “on the go”? I’m not looking forward to McDonald’s as a hangout, but I’m also not looking forward to a future of eating burgers and burritos in my car, or eating them cold at home.
Jeff, do you think that parking lot is bigger than most QSR’s because they are expecting a higher auto count all the time? I am guessing a lot of those spots are also for waiting areas for larger or special orders that take time to prepare?
Talk about much ado over nothing (or at least little): the original McD’s had no dining room – could that be what was meant by “drive in”?? -the concept is notable for how little it is tied to specific formats, not how much.
No, this does not represent the extinction of the fast-food dining room. Anyone who has been to a traditional McDonalds and seen the number of people dining-in knows this full well. This is simply an alternative format designed to cater to markets where takeout and digital orders are elevated.
The move to more reliance on drive-thru locations is not new. In 2005, only 15% of Starbucks were drive-thru locations. Today, drive-thru locations represent 70% of Starbucks. Some of this involved closing a Starbucks location without drive-thru and opening a location nearby that could offer the more profitable drive thru option.
If the Starbucks famous “Third Place” is now just a spot in a drive-thru line, it’s not surprising that McDonald’s and others are decreasing available seating and emphasizing drive-thru. This shift lowers costs in an increasing cost environment. It also emphasizes the more profitable part of the business. As a business, a smart move. As a brand experience, not so great.
An opportunity emerges for a new Third Place.
Two things can be true at the same time: Dine-in fast food is here to stay, and/but drive-thru only represents the biggest opportunity in the segment. What took McDonald’s so long?
The drive-thru only Chick-fil-A here in north suburban Milwaukee has been a big success, in part because it occupies a property that would not have been big enough for a conventional store building and full-sized parking lot. Every fast food restaurant ought to be looking at the location opportunity that the concept offers.
This is not the end of the QSR dining room; no more than home delivery is the end of the brick-and-mortar store. This is McDonalds being flexible. In some venues walk up only makes a ton of sense. In others, diners are going to want a place to sit, use the restrooms. Adapt to the best use of the space you have. Great strategy.
If you go into a McDonalds (or other fast-food restaurants), you’ll find plenty of people sitting and enjoying a meal, coffee, etc. No, it’s not the end of fast-food dining rooms. Smart restaurant brands will pick and choose where to have large, small, or no dining rooms based on their data.
If you’ve been to a Culver’s, you know there is a thriving dine-in burger joint scene that does function well as a “third space”. And while their prices used to be on the high side, given their excellent quality and menu variety, the value-for-money proposition tips more in their favor given the price inflation at McD’s and elsewhere.
When we conducted our QSR research a couple months ago, we saw a strong preference for drive-thru. Prioritizing this and making sure that mobile channels are set up to successfully facilitate is absolutely the move. This will be a big win.
I think this is a smart move. How many traditional fast food places have dining rooms that look appealing? Why expend the energy and the money for an eating environment that is depressing? Society has (in general) moved past eating in one of these places and do you really want people to see you putting that double quarter pounder with cheese in your mouth while you sit in the uncomfortable plastic booth with the ketchup stained table? The answer is: NO.
Brave New World. Shove those french fries in your mouth in the safety of your SUV.
I don’t do McDonald’s (but I would do drive-through before I’d spend time sitting in one). I’ve seen some real success around here with the Caribou Cabin drive-through only units and so this trend doesn’t surprise me. While certainly there are a fair number of people who like to sit in a fast food outlet, there are many who also like to grab and go, and eat elsewhere.