McDonough, Georgia, is home of Chick-fil-A’s first elevated, drive-through-only restaurant. Instead of navigating their cars to service windows on the side of the restaurant, customers now drive under the raised building to receive orders via a lift system from the kitchens above. The franchise’s one-of-a-kind model opened in Aug. 2024 and strives to improve fast food service through technology while maintaining hospitality for its guests. Advancements such as this are rare in the service industry, yet affect the surrounding infrastructure and signify the extent to which cities cater toward personal vehicles.
These new restaurant models feature four drive-through lanes, offering mobile pickup lanes or ordering with a crew member. Since the many Chick-fil-A locations have difficulties with traffic and congested drive-through lines, the new, four-line model can support two to three times more vehicles than a standard Chick-fil-A restaurant drive-through – roughly 75 cars. As cars proceed under the elevated building, a sophisticated conveyor belt system streamlines the delivery process by moving the food from the kitchen to team members on the ground every six seconds. The kitchens in the elevated buildings are twice as large as a typical Chick-fil-A to manage the increased demand and expedite service.
“Our Guests lead busy lives, and we’re focused on designing our restaurants to best serve their needs,” commented Jonathan Reed, Executive Director of Design for Chick-fil-A in a 2024 press release. “With the new Elevated Drive-Thru design, featuring our first four lane drive-thru, we’re aiming to deliver quality food and genuine hospitality in a way that’s uniquely Chick-fil-A, and gives our Guests time back in their day.”
Chick-fil-A is not the only restaurant implementing new technologies in their food supply process. Taco Bell opened its first “Taco Bell Defy” building model in 2022, which mirrors the lack of human contact in the Chick-fil-A location. Orders are delivered through “vertical lifts,” straight to the customer’s car from the kitchens above. McDonald’s has taken part in this rising trend by creating a fully-automated restaurant in hopes to minimize human interaction when customers order and pick up food. This distinctive approach to managing restaurants may push consumers into a technology-automated future, yet posts impacts to surrounding areas.
A study by the City of Burbank, California, published in Sept. 2022 found that the construction of drive-thrus leads to the destruction of public sidewalks and driveways, noise pollution and generation of waste from packaging and litter. Idling cars generate large amounts of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter into the air. The thousands of vehicles that sit in drive-throughs daily compound this issue, leading to smog and poor air quality in fast-food-heavy locations. Additionally, the large, paved areas around the drive-throughs absorb and retain heat, leading to an increase in local temperatures through the urban heat island effect.
These issues have been found to impact surrounding neighborhoods, making their way to the attention of local government officials. Starting in 2019, cities such as Minneapolis have moved to ban new drive-through construction. Other cities in New Jersey, Missouri and New York have also followed suit. These bans are put in place to reduce emissions, reduce litter, increase walkability, and prioritize pedestrian safety. Often, this legislation is also meant to promote healthier alternatives to fast food and curb the growing American health epidemic.
Although new drive-through building models might be attractive for local economies to attract revenue, they substantiate on a car reliance. These businesses cater to drivers, rather than creating spaces for pedestrians or bikers. Non-car transit also becomes more dangerous since drive-throughs add to traffic congestion, forcing pedestrians and cyclists to navigate around idling cars. The large parking lots and queuing lanes occupy lots of space, which leads to essential businesses and walkable storefronts becoming more spread out. These areas prioritize zoning that allows drive-throughs, in turn limiting more sustainable developments and mixed-use, walkable communities. Traveling around sprawling, low-density suburban areas is difficult without a car, and large amounts of fast food and drive-throughs make this more difficult.
Though drive-throughs are solidified as a cornerstone of American food culture, there are ways to mitigate its environmental impacts. Restricting new drive-throughs in walkable areas, encouraging walkable storefronts and mixed-use zoning, promoting sustainable infrastructure and green spaces to cool urban areas, and adding anti-idling policies will be steps in the right direction. Though the current 200,000 American drive-throughs rack up a staggering 6 billion visits from consumers annually, their impact can be reduced through thoughtful urban planning and sustainable policies.
Despite the inevitable consequences of contactless restaurants, the Chick-fil-A franchise strives to offset its environmental impact. In 2022, the franchise diverted 13.9 million pounds of food waste from landfills through composting and food donations. The company’s values efforts are further reflected through their uniforms, which are made from their consumers’ recycled water bottles, and composting programs. Chick-fil-A has also converted over 626,000 gallons of used cooking oil into renewable biodiesel fuel, allowing the corporation to utilize cleaner-burning biofuel which can reduce up to 80% of their greenhouse gas emissions, compared to the use of traditional fossil fuels.
With the Chick-fil-A, Inc. corporate’s goal to avert over 25 million pounds of restaurant food waste from landfills by 2025, they strive to positively impact communities throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada.
