Friday, February 10, 2006

Chick-fil-a's remote drive-thru

A new Chick-fil-a store in Houston has the city's first fully manned, double drive-through. The fascinating feature of this drive-through is the second, or 'remote' lane.

In the 'remote' lane you pull up to the window of a booth that is not part of the main building. There is a person to greet you at this drive-through window, but how does the food get to this booth you ask? The food is transported in a basket on a conveyor belt along the roof from the main restaurant to the booth; the food & drinks are kept upright by a gyroscopic mechanism.

This new Chick-fil-A is huge, with 165 seats inside and patio seating for 32.

An article in the Houston Chronicle also tells of the restaurant's "breathtaking design...bold, sweeping lines and risk-taking use of windows."

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Order your copy today!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Jesse said...

Unless I'm missing something, I don't think this is actually a new development in the fast-food world.

I've been to a few on the south side of Chicago (White Castle and Taco Bell) that use a very similar, if slightly lower-tech, system. When you pull up, there's a metal tray with a cup where you put your money; the tray's lifted up, over, and down to the person who's manning the closer-in lane; then they put the food on the tray, which again is lifted up, over, and down.

8/18/2006 8:38 PM  
Anonymous Joe said...

They talk about this in the Fast Food Nation as being around in the 30's and 40's, it's called the Motormat

4/26/2007 8:53 PM  

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