Fast food has destaffed their registers so even with this line it is probably faster to drive through than to wait to order before you wait for your deprioritized food
I was ready to go in here and say I won’t get out of my car until I see the others in my group show up to whatever place we’re eating. I’ve got some social anxiety issues though.
This though…this is fucking stupid. I see this shit at coffee stands like Dutch Bros all the time. They have a walk up window. It’s like 5x faster to get the fuck out of your car, order at the window, and walk away with your sugar bomb.
The same with fast food. My wife worked at BK on an AFB for a long time. Airmen would line up in the drive through. Inside was near empty. Same deal. It’d be much faster to get out of my truck, go in, order my shit, and leave. Then they’d have the audacity to complain that the place was “wasting their lunch break.” Bitch, there’s a commissary with fresh sushi in it, always stocked, a made to order deli sub place in the back, and lots of other healthy things. You could also bring your own food from home. You could also get out of the fucking car and get it.
I’m not fully anti car as everyone on here, though I do get it and wish there was better mass transit and walkable areas. I do think vehicles have their uses, and that MT isn’t an option for everyone. That said, this type of shit is stupid af. Stop clogging up the roads. Stop wasting gas. Stop polluting with your idling bullshit (I’m seeing at least 3 gas guzzlers in the pic in the comments.)
This is also incredibly dangerous. Blocking a lane causes backups further down. It causes people to have to merge into other lanes. Often times people don’t pay attention and dodge at the last minute, or they get frustrated/angry and make stupid decisions.
Dutch bros isn’t coffee lol it’s sugar water with flavoring
I always tell my wife she can save money and just eat out of the bag of sugar we have at home.
Most people here are not totally against cars. We’re mainly against car-centric design. Of course cars have uses, specially for the disabled.
I remember this picture. It was from the opening of some mediocre but popular burger chain. They had the doors closed and it was drive through only that day if I’m recalling it correctly.
Um…you can literally see the Starbucks logo on the side of the building.
There is a very similar picture to this of some burger joint opening up but fine now that I wasted my time looking its a starbucks.
As others have pointed out, this is a Starbucks, but take a look at this photo I took a couple months ago. It was a line for an In-N-Out burger that was not even new, but it was the longest drive-through line I’ve ever seen. It was like ~500 feet long and split off into four separate lanes that all filtered into two main lanes that they actually took your order at. I was across the street getting Chipotle and I spent about 15 minutes inside watching this line and all of these cars only move forward by about one car length. I guesstimate that these people are gonna be waiting in line for two plus hours and that fucking blows my mind.
And the fuckers were spilling into the main road blocking traffic.
Just yesterday I wanted to go out to see my “local” town. I ended up going out for about 3 hours, 2 or which were “sitting” in the car commuting from a “livley” area to another “lively” area.
Business like the one shown in this photo posted by OP have become to far apart from one another, separate by seas of parking and 8 lanes of pavement.
Its astonishing that this is considered “normal” in North America. Just going to the local Walmart to get some milk can take about a hour or two of your day.
Walking is almost out of the question, just imaging leaving the Walmart that is probably located on the other side to arrive at the front door of this coffee chain.
Everyone behind the silver car at the parking lot entrance is illegally blocking the road. Regardless of the car culture problem or OP’s disingenuous use of a CoViD era image out of context, those people needed to go away. If you can’t get your coffee without parking in the street, you don’t get coffee at that location at that time. Safety is more important than someone getting their sugar/caffeine fix.
The legality really depends on the jurisdiction. Where I live, it is 100% the business responsibility to ensure this doesn’t happen, and if it does, there are big fines for the business, the customer is not at fault.
Plenty of things the business could do to reduce this, such as making people park up after ordering (a very popular option where I live), increasing prices to reduce their demand, having a digital queue system, removing the drive-through altogether, etc.
Business passes small bribe to local politician
“No longer our problem”
Wishful thinking, but the fines are far greater than any business would be willing to pay as a bribe
This is probably during COVID when the inside was off limits.
Plenty of people still use the drive through, but the complete lack of anyone in the carpark is sus.
Former “partner”(ugh) circa 2015 here
Back when I walked for the bux, 5 years before covid, this was my daily drive thru experience. My store averaged about 6 grand (thats about 700 customers) on DT alone during our morning rush, 6 hours straight of underfilled cars starting their day with caffeine dessert.
This specific store could be a covid thing, but empty lobbies with cars wrapped around the building has kinda been starbie’s MO for the last decade or so that they’ve been transitioning away from “third place” mindset to “oh fuck we’re competing with McDicks mindset”
I see this kind of thing regularly at my local Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers restaurant when it hits dinner time. The cars wrap around the building and block other traffic.
Same for the DQ where I live.
I love me a drive thru when I’m so exhausted I don’t want to get out of the car. Car has comfy seats and HVAC. Normally I do prefer going in to get the order faster though.
Well. Some places don’t offer counter service and their doors are locked. You have to use the drive thru. Otherwise I agree with you except I don’t get to even talk to a human, I am directed to a kiosk. And they flash a tip option. A tip for what?
Hardworking appliances depend on tips to provide electrons to their families. If you don’t tip the kiosk that kiosk might go home and have to explain to it’s toaster that they can only afford to use the low power settings.
Sometimes the drive through is just as fast as going inside. I’ve been at a mcD’s where I went in cause the line looked like this but I ended up waiting 20 mins for my order inside cause they were just slammed at that moment
On top of that, they prioritize the drive-through in a lot of these places.
Only by like a minute of average time-per-order, unless things have changed drastically since I worked in that industry. And only five of those cars are “in the system” so the big line shouldn’t even be a factor. Also, depending on what you get at a Starbucks, they can prep several things in parallel. I’m hoping this is a “summer 2020 and every dining room is closed” situation but I don’t really believe it.
What tunnel vision does to a mf
Is nobody mentioning the fact that there are 4 lane roads surrounding the entire coffee shop? Like thats absolutely the least or one of the least efficient ways you could do urban planning. In areas similar to this where I live, the block sizes are at least like 5x wider and longer than whatever this is.
They needed to spend millions to add an extra lane so it could handle the queue to the coffee shop. Unfortunately there was nothing left in the budget for bike lanes, it just wasn’t a priority.
People were getting annoyed at the queue, so they kept adding one more lane?
Nah, they probably added more all around to make it “more convenient” for drivers to keep going straight and still get to the many different destinations possible, but they could just have one road and the drivers could head around a roundabout or something.
Great point, what sort of a hellscape is that!?
Until you realize that they purposefully understaff and now your front counter guy has to prioritize drive thru times over your order because that’s the only metric corporate measures.
Was this taken during covid lockdowns when the indoor section was closed and there was no other option?
Yes, definitely. I remember this exact picture.
Without cars, plenty of those businesses wouldn’t be able to have customers and would have gone bankrupt because of it.
This is a misinformation post made to circlejerk about shitting on cars.
There are plenty of reasons to shit on them, this one isn’t it.
Okay but that’s assuming the drive thru system is the only way to handle distanced transactions. They could have a counter with a wall they push your food through so that people could stand in line without having this ridiculous line blocking traffic. Back during covid my family got a lot less fast food because I don’t drive so they literally couldn’t serve me, and also my mom just loathes the drive thru experience with a burning passion.
i think so. found this article
edit: and this
Lotta places are just like this anyway.
Looks like covid lockdown time.
Though it’s true that this particular picture was taken during covid time, it does not mean its any less true in conveying what North American car culture has actually done to our cities and infrastructure planning/implementation.
Here is a video of how school drop off for example work in North America.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLpCMdVcqTI
Looking at this particular plot of land in the image OP has posted. Land use is very poorly utilized. You have one business surrounded by a parking lot. This same space could have easily in a European city fit 5 or more businesses with plenty of residential units above and still be left with place for green space or a park.
30 people getting coffee vs 30 people getting coffee.
And a comparable parcel of land roughly the same size. Its night and day in terms of utilization of land alone.
Because that’s when the picture was taken.
Which means OP is spreading misinformation by saying they should just park and go inside.
They literally weren’t allowed to because of covid.
Misinformation? In this community? How unexpexted.
There is a Starbucks just like this to this day in a suburb where I worked until just recently. Every morning at 8 AM they have a drive-thru line backed up out into the surrounding streets.
Not to excuse it but some restaurants prioritize drive through over the people who order inside.
