July 24 - National Drive-Thru Day

nPosted on July 24, 2019

The first drive-thru restaurant might have been Red’s Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri. The ease of picking up food without having to find a parking spot – not to mention gathering all the kids and herding them safely across the parking lot and inside the restaurant, only to be met with a line at the counter! – this convenience is what made “fast food” and “drive-thru”s so popular.

Driving in a pouring rainstorm is bad
enough; but having to get out of the
car and run inside is even worse.

That’s when eating in the car, staying
cozy and dry, is the meal of choice!

nEspecially in terrible weather! I’m thinking of wind and rain and snow, but some places are super humid and hot, in the summer, and it feels awful every time you sprint from your air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned building. People living in those places reeeeaaallly benefit from drive-thru’s!

I saw this photo with the caption,
“Is this the supermarket of the future?”

nOnce the drive-thru format became popular for prepared food and drinks (especially coffee), it spread to other industries such as banking, dairies, convenience stores, and pharmacy, and people enjoy the ease of dropping off everything from mail and dry cleaning to paperwork and library books without ever having to leave their cars.

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nBUT –

nThere are a few problems with drive-thru’s:

It can be über frustrating to be behind some guy who can’t decide on his order, is scrounging everywhere in the car for the right amount of money, in small coins, and THEN wants to argue about the food. It’s usually a lot easier to get in a new line inside than out in the drive-thru portion of a restaurant.

nAlso frustrating: the drive-thru’s with really bad speakers. Could you repeat that? Um…I still didn’t get what you said… Oh, man…could you just run out here and talk to me???

nHow about the customers who talk and talk and talk – and maybe even flirt with – the drive-thru workers, even when there is a long line behind them? Rude!

nPeople who live near fast-food drive-thru’s that stay open 24 hours complain about the noise, the trash, and even people urinating in the alley or street! (Folks can get food and drink from the drive-thru at 3 a.m., but the restrooms aren’t open!)

nDrive-thru’s are more dangerous to people who walk or bike because of all those driveways – plus distracted drivers who are trying to check their order while pulling away from the window!

nDrive-thru’s discriminate against those who do not drive. Loads of people cannot afford a car or auto insurance, and some people cannot drive because of medical conditions or physical disabilities.

nBut even more important is all those idling cars belching out greenhouse gases as they slowly inch forward in long lines at the drive-thru! Yikes! Can you say global-warming-nightmare?

nMany people in the U.S. are trying really hard to get away from some of the excesses of car-culture. They are trying to make downtown areas more walkable…trying to provide better mass transit…trying to go green. For those people, I say that library book depositories and drive-thru mailboxes make a lot of sense and almost never have lines. There should be occasional drive-thru coffee places (coffee is pretty fast to provide!), pharmacies, and dairies – perhaps on the outskirts of the downtown area, or in the suburbs – these services are such a help to lone parents with multiple teeny kids! But prioritizing pedestrians and bicyclists over people driving cars – encouraging slower food and mom-and-pop shops – refreshing downtown areas and hosting more stroll-thru farmer’s markets while cutting down on drive-thru burger joints – all of these choices can help make cities and populations safer, cleaner, and healthier.