The fast food giant is trying an idea that Starbucks has already succeeded, from Veronika Bondarenko, street.
Digital restaurants are one of the most controversial new developments in the fast food industry – some see them as a way to reduce staff usage and speed up the ordering process, while others see them as too automated and soulless for their ethos taste. Last year, chicken chain Wingstop unveiled what it called its “restaurant of the future” — a small front area with an ordering screen, no seating or tables, and a cashless concept. While passers-by can currently order food using a screen, the chain aims to eventually transition to being only a place to pick up online orders through the Wingstop mobile app.
Yum! Taco Bell, a subsidiary of the brand, opened its first digital-only restaurant in New York’s Times Square in early 2021 and has since expanded across the country.
The Tex-Mex chain Chipotle Mexican Grill has “Chipotlanes,” which are similar to traditional drive-thru restaurants, but stand alone rather than attached to the main restaurant.
McDonald’s latest step into the future
As the country’s most popular and iconic fast-food chain, McDonald’s (MCD) has been slower to embrace the purely digital concept. The format of the new restaurant includes more screens and a smaller reception, but until now, at least, most restaurants have at least one small dining area.
On Thursday, Golden Arches announced it was testing a new restaurant concept. The pilot location in Fort Worth, Texas, is about half the size of a traditional McDonald’s and includes several features designed to serve different types of digital and pickup customers — conveyor belts for pickup of online orders, Uber Eats’ Shelving areas and other delivery people to pick up, and there are kiosks with screens for those who want to order there.
“At McDonald’s, we’ve been setting the standard for Drive Thrus for 45 years,” Max Carmona, senior director of global design and restaurant development, said in a statement. “As the needs of our customers continue to evolve, we’re committed to finding new ways to serve them faster and easier than ever before.”
Purely digital restaurants, fast food automation and robotics
The fast food industry has been steadily pushing its customers to order online through its mobile apps. McDonald’s already dominates the industry when it comes to app usage — it will have 12 million more downloads than the next most installed fast food app in 2021 — but investments in such concepts show that its leaders Expect such orders to continue to grow.
Features like cashless restaurants, 24-hour automated kiosks and food delivery robots are also becoming more common across the industry. Fast food is particularly well-suited for these types of developments because, unlike sit-down and family-run restaurants, few customers place a premium on eating-in, and even some spots that are tailored specifically for the situation will remain.
Over the past 12-24 months, technology systems have been upgraded to facilitate mobile access, on-demand bookings, delivery and pickup orders, contactless payments, digital menus and loyalty programs to provide ‘contactless ‘ dining experience,” Brian Solis write to Restaurant dive in early 2022.
