Towards a Streamlined Drive-thru Ordering Ethic

It’s understood that I have a tendency to over-think something that should be simple. The brain that fries itself with complex problems that have complex ansers often has trouble coming up with simple answers to simple problems.

With that in mind…

Over the last few years, I’ve come to a place of understanding about the “best” way to place an order at a fast food drive-thru. You probably consider this a rather simple task, and it should be. But consider the following:

Your average fast-food employee wasn’t necessarily chosen for their job due to their “attention to detail” and multitasking potential. Now sure, plenty of them are good at it, but plenty of them aren’t as well. This is compounded by the fact that the options for your average combo meal at a fast food place have been on the rise lately.

Let’s consider a combo meal at Wendy’s. Here are all the options that have to be determined:

- Combo meal number.
- Combo meal option (i.e. cheese or not, spicy or homestyle sandwich).
- Combo meal size.
- Combo meal drink choice.
- Combo meal side choice (fries, potato, salad).

So that’s 5 items that need to be decided, and I’m willing to bet those 5 options have to be inputted in to a computer in a very specific order.

So let’s say I pull up to the drive thru, and say the following:

“lemme get a number 8 with coke, garden salad, no tomatoes on the sandwich, oh, make that a large coke.”

Assuming the options have to be put in the computer in the order listed above, I am of the opinion that as soon as you say something that diverges from the next option their computer wants them to enter, about 50% of order-takers stop listening to what you say, and wait till you finish talking so they can back you up to ask about the option you need answering.

So let’s let that last order play out:

me:“lemme get a number 8 with coke, garden salad, no tomatoes on the sandwich, oh, make that a large coke.” ** (but all they heard was lemme get a number 8, blah blah blah blah blah).
them:ok would you like that spicy or homestyle?
me: spicy
them: and what size combo?
me: (slightly agitated cause I already said large): uh, large
them: and what to drink?
me: coke.
them: and what side?
me: (more agitated) garden salad.
them: alright, your total is 6.92.

So basically, I had to answer all the questions again. And they didn’t hear me say I wanted no tomatoes. Now, of course there are some folks who can take in all the details and sort them out, and enter it all properly. But some can’t.

So What To Do About All This

The picture painted above may seem alittle over-dramatic and making a big deal out of something simple. And I would have to agree. But I told you that going in to it!

What I do about it, is simple: try and spit my order out in the order that the computer wants to know it. How do I know the order? Well, I don’t really, but I did work at Fazoli’s when I was 15/16, so I do have a basic understanding of what would be required. Here’s an example, for what I often get at Chick-Fil-A. It was based on what questions I continually get asked about:

“I’ll have a number 6, caesar wrap, caesar dressing, value sized, with lemonade, to go.”

That usually works pretty well. Before I said it in that order, they would ask me what dressing as soon as I finished talking (which is an odd question if you ask me, obviously if I’m getting a caesar wrap, I’m having caesar dressing, but I digress).

Alright, I think I’ve worn this topic out far too much. Any input, even if it’s an expression of an excessive amount of time on my hands is welcome.