Before the pandemic, two-thirds of fast-food sales came through the drive-through window, according to Revenue Management Solutions, the food-data aficionados whose analyses help chains price their cheeseburgers. That figure soared to 83 percent as lockdowns hit, and recently has settled back down to 63 percent. As prices soar and delivery proliferates, drive-through traffic continues to fall; by January it was down more than a quarter from its pre-pandemic level.
That big-picture analysis doesn’t tell us much about drive-through conditions on the ground. So we turned to the fine folks at Intouch Insight, whose data allows us to dive surprisingly deep on specific restaurants.
For almost a quarter century, the firm and its predecessors have dispatched secret shoppers to top fast-food outlets throughout the United States. The shopper squad visits outlets from each of 10 chains at least 160 times, focusing on the lunch and dinner hours.
The shoppers collect data on just about everything, from how many cars were in line and how long they waited to place an order to the temperature of their food and whether or not the clerk said “please” and made eye contact.
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