If you are a restaurant owner, chances are that you probably have the foundation in place to meet the demands of a drive-thru restaurant. The drive-thru has been a fast-expanding sales channel for the fast food business since it first appeared in the 1960s. However, once the global pandemic hit in 2020, the drive-thru turned into a crucial sales channel for maintaining store revenue.
The past two years have changed the way we do dining. Restaurants had to get innovative in order to cater to their customers. For the first time, many restaurants adopted a take-out and delivery model in order to continue making money while in-person dining was prohibited. Some restaurants, especially fast food franchises, were able to maintain a steady flow of customers by leveraging a drive-thru system. This gave rise to the renaissance of the drive-thru model of restaurants.
Your restaurant can gain an additional source of income by using a drive-thru. You will have more opportunities to generate revenue and more ways to diversify how you service your customers. However, you might have questions like, “is it possible to install a drive-thru to specific restaurants?”
If you are interested in increasing your sales in your existing dine-in restaurant, or if you are looking to open a completely new drive-thru restaurant, continue reading to find out why implementing a drive-thru business strategy might not be as difficult as it looks.
6 tips for opening a drive-thru restaurant
- Know your demographics
Does your restaurant sit amidst a busy downtown area surrounded by offices, or tucked away in a quaint town where life is slow and easy? Do you notice most of your customers are young adults?
A restaurant owner must make an effort to understand these potential customers, whether they are families, couples, or teenagers. Knowing your demographic is essential for growing your business and bringing in and keeping consumers. Every part of your company plan is impacted by your target market.
It would make more sense for you to operate a drive-thru at a bustling office area where people do not have the time to park their cars, come into your restaurant, order, eat and leave.
Without having a clear grasp of who your target demographic is, you might be setting yourself up for failure. Your target audience will come to your restaurant for those reasons listed in your menu and services. What you offer at your business will depend on your target market, so it’s critical to ask yourself: Will my target market desire what I’m offering?
- Grab the best spot
After identifying your target audience, you must conduct research to learn where your target audience lives, hangs out, and shops.
Not every restaurant is appropriate for every site, and not every location is appropriate for every restaurant, despite the existence of a few common standards like accessibility, parking, and visibility. The ideal customer and the restaurant concept need to work together when choosing the best site. You’ll be well on your way to selecting a restaurant location that positions your establishment for success if you can specify your restaurant type and pinpoint your target demographics.
Rent may be less expensive if you choose a location on a side street or back road with limited traffic, but your company won’t have much visibility. A high rent location might help you cut down on promotional expenses.
- Optimize your menu
Finding the menu items that will work best for your business and for your clients are the two main considerations when optimizing your menu. Assess and evaluate your best-selling products according to their profitability to determine which ones to keep selling. Consider putting together a menu that features a well-balanced selection of dishes that are easy to prepare and have high profit margins.
You must take into account the durability of menu items for drive-thru or self-pick up. Questions such as whether it will maintain temperature and is robust enough to be transported should be addressed. Not all of the dishes on your bestselling list travel or serve well when packaged.
Additionally, you should consider the necessity of combinations like sauces and purees that can combine or mash together during delivery. Make sure you take the required safeguards, such as having different containers in place, and most importantly, making it easy for the customers to eat their food in the car.
- Hire staff who can work well under pressure
A friendly, well-trained crew is essential to a satisfying dining experience. Time and effort spent during the hiring process can result in higher-quality recruits and fewer workforce concerns.
For drive-thrus, you would require your staff to be someone who can handle well under pressure. Drive-thrus are fast, and there is a sense of urgency that lingers in the environment for both customers and the staff. Making sure to hire someone who stays calm at high pressure situations, can make wise judgements and decisions, and is quick on their feet would be the ideal candidate to work at a drive-thru.
- Invest in digital menus and signs
Every business places a high importance on customer involvement and convenience, and digital menu boards provide exactly that. Digital menus have proven to reduce service time by more than 12 seconds on an average, which is essential for drive-thru restaurants. Restaurants can also easily upsell with captivating animations.
Users are more likely to pay attention to attractively designed offers and promotions, and drive-thru menu boards further enhance this effect due to their prominent positioning. With these discounts, it helps restaurants raise the average order value, which boosts sales and revenue.
Ordering at a drive-thru can create a sense of urgency for customers, as they feel like they are holding up the queue if they are taking too long to order. This might lead to higher order values because many customers make impulsive purchases and even order extra sides that are being sold at a discounted price. This is unquestionably a benefit for eateries that use drive-thru menu boards. An essential element in a restaurant’s success is operational effectiveness. With digital menu boards, changing the menu is made easier so you can concentrate on other crucial things.
- Automate everything
When you invest enough in automating your restaurant’s day-to-day operations, you increase efficiency.
When you facilitate an online ordering site, your customers can order directly from your website for delivery through your drive-thru and pick it up whenever suits them, reducing wait times for you. On your online ordering system, you can put up a mobile payment option, or you can use a tap-to-pay terminal that accepts cards and mobile devices. You may service each client as rapidly as possible by using this sort of transaction, which only takes a few seconds to complete. The use of touchless payment mechanisms reduces client hand contact and speeds up drive-thru times.
A point-of-sale (POS) system that accepts orders from numerous channels is a crucial requirement for a drive-thru. Efficiency is increased by having a POS system that allows for integrations with third-party products since orders received through various channels may be processed automatically rather than having to be manually typed into the POS terminal. This not only decreases the chance of errors and saves time, but it also lowers labor costs.
The Takeaway
A modern drive-thru offers more than just driving up to a window and placing an order. Drive-thrus are a great method to satisfy the needs of busy customers while boosting your revenue. Your restaurant can be successful by following trends, but it can also be guaranteed by thinking creatively and staying ahead of your competition. Implementing drive-thrus might be a good place to begin.