Large Drive-Thru Orders

[Peppergirl]

One of my friends recently complained on her FB page about people who have multiple or excessively large orders at fast-food drive thrus. We were both surprised by some of the responses.

About half the people agreed with her that drive-thru's should be for reasonably sized orders, not for $30-40 worth of food. Same goes for very complicated, modified orders that take a long time.

The other half felt that drive-thru's should be for whatever the customer wants to get. One person inquired something like, "Oh! So if someone wants to order a hundred dollars worth of stuff that would take 10 minutes to order and at least 20 to 30 to fulfill, that'd be okay and fair to the people behind them?" More than 2 people responded it would be fine. First-come, first served and all that.

I was pretty floored, so thought about bringing it here. Im particularly interested in what current or past fast-food workers have to say about this. Are you allowed to turn someone away whose order is too large? Do you think it's shitty to place huge orders at the drive-thru?

[Greenday]

Placing a huge order at the drive-thru is like taking a full cart of groceries to the 15 items or less line at the supermarket. It's meant to be a quick option. Quick does not apply to large orders. In fact, it probably hurts a fast food place to have huge orders like that. It takes a long time to get through and in all the time that one person was sitting there, ten cars could have gone through already with smaller orders.

[Boozy]

I feel like the days when the drive-thru was faster are long gone. If I'm in a hurry, I always park and go in. At my local coffee shop, there are usually at least five cars in line at the drive-thru, and rarely anyone at the counter. I leave drive-thrus for the lazy or those who can't come in for other reasons (like they are disabled, or have small children with them).

It is incredibly stupid what some people expect of drive-thrus, though. My cousin used to work at a coffee shop/bakery and she once told me of a woman who tried to order her wedding cake through the drive-thru.

[Ginger Tea]

Someone tried ordering a wedding cake from a donut store.
Not sure if that was a CS post or not always working.

I don't drive, but I would be a bit miffed sat behind a large order, or a long to be filled order, it doesn't have to be a lot, just after a while too long is too long.
In store the large order person can stand to one side whilst the cashier takes care of the next order, they don't have to do anything for the volume order after cash, drinks and fries till the food comes through.

[Nekojin]

Our local Jack in the Box* deals with large orders by having the large-order-placer move off and park, so that other people can still get their food and be gone without having to wait for the guy with the big order. One of the employees takes the order out to the car that's waiting once it's ready. Heck, we've BEEN that car that gets sent to the side a few times (not because we're placing large orders, but because they'd run out of something, nobody had pre-emptively gotten the next box/bag/whatever, and had to go into the storeroom to get it).

*and some other fast food joints in the area, but certainly not all of them.

[Peppergirl]

Definitely. I was surprised at some of the comments. Perhaps her friends are particularly sucky customers.

[Nyoibo]

If it's a 24 hour store that only has the drive through open at night, fine, otherwise go in, having said that, here if it's going to take time to get your order they park you off to the side.

[Peppergirl]

Well, obviously if the drive thru is the only thing open, that's different.

However, it does take time to ORDER lots of this food, too...thereby holding up the line to actually PLACE the order. It's been my experience that a car load of people all ordering food tend to each shout their orders, and confusion ensues and also changing of minds and modifications, etc.

[Andara Bledin]

My opinion is that if it's going to take more than five minutes to order, you probably shouldn't be doing fast food at all, but if you are, then get the fuck out of the car and stop holding up the line.

[HYHYBT]

Ordering: a $30 order isn't really all that much these days unless it's all dollar menu stuff. You're talking about four meals. Even if it's al special ordered stuff, taking that order won't take that long, UNLESS. That's unless they hem and haw about what they want and keep changing things. Orders of that size, it's not so much a matter of "you shouldn't order that in a Drive-Thru" as "you should decide what you want before you get to the speaker if there's that much." Inside, you can always let people ahead of you until you've made up your minds, though many people aren't that considerate.

A *really* large order, if it's a single order, you should call ahead for. And most people do. A large *crowd,* that is, what would be a large order except they're ordering separately, you probably can't get your bus through the drive-thru anyway, and you'd do better on distributing it accurately to come in even if doing otherwise were possible. Besides, those usually want to eat in anyway.

Now, a truly huge, to-go order for people who are not present is generally going to be a large multiple of standard items (say, 50 Big Mac meals.) Again, you should have called, but it doesn't take long to order and you will be parked. The main trouble in that case is the drinks: inside, we could just hand you a sleeve of cups and some carriers and let you fix them while the food is being made. DT, just ringing the order up sends them to the automatic dispenser, which means that nobody's getting anything else out of it until those are made (and the cups and ice refilled, most likely.)

Anyway, if they have the courtesy to be organized (ideally with one person ordering from a written list) going through the drive-thru isn't all that big a deal.

As for multiple orders in one car: ask first, and accept the answer. Finish one order completely and make sure the transition point is clear before beginning the next, and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER try to go back and change anything on an order once it's been stored. These conditions are not a matter of the ordertaker or the store being picky; at least with the software we had, you couldn't pull a previous order back to the OT register (the previous system did allow it, but only if another order hadn't been started) and skipping ahead to it on the cashier register made it impossible to go to any other orders until the modified one had been paid for, which is somewhat of a problem when it belongs to the car three back from the one sitting there with money.

[Nekojin]

HYHYBT: They seriously have the soda machines tied in directly to the cash registers? That can't possibly have been a cost-efficient change to make. Soda costs so little, who cares if someone gets a Large instead of a Medium by mistake?

[Ginger Tea]

As for multiple orders in one car: ask first, and accept the answer. Finish one order completely and make sure the transition point is clear before beginning the next, and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER try to go back and change anything on an order once it's been stored. These conditions are not a matter of the ordertaker or the store being picky; at least with the software we had, you couldn't pull a previous order back to the OT register (the previous system did allow it, but only if another order hadn't been started) and skipping ahead to it on the cashier register made it impossible to go to any other orders until the modified one had been paid for, which is somewhat of a problem when it belongs to the car three back from the one sitting there with money.

When you say the car three back, do you mean a group of cars all in the same order, just that the lead car is sorting the order out?
If that's the case, what are they doing in the queue and not somewhere in the car park?
It's easier for everyone if the cars are dealt with individually if modifiers are called for, it's alright if it is the same product multiple times, but unless they have their shit together and know which to add or remove pickles etc, chances are they will forget one and they would shift blame to the company instead of the lead car who forgot that Dave cannot eat pickles.
Hell it might end up a case where Dave's pickle less burger ends up with Sue who complains that she got no pickles but ate it anyway.

Saturday Evening I went to a pub near me cos they do a filling (so filling I normally leave the sausage's chips and peas, not that I willingly eat peas) mixed grill, I ordered just in time, a group of a dozen to twenty students came in a tad before and were browsing the menu's.
The chain has some meals listed as 2 for £9.95 and almost at once each member came to the bar to order, even with three staff on hand they bunched up close, blocking other people getting to that area and I found later, they had bunched all their chairs so that no one could get to the gents either, luckily there was a 2nd the other end of the bar, but no short cut, I had to limp the whole circuit of the bar, if I was really busting I would have just gone to the nearby ladies. But I digress.

Each was getting their own order filled, hanging around to chat to their still waiting friends, so the bar staff had no idea how many needed serving or not, luckily they had not come on a busy night, cos there is nothing like having 20 people at the bar, but only 2 of them wanting service.
I don't know how many picked from the 2 for menu, but I don't think, judging by the crowd, that anyone took advantage of it, some meals were close to £8 by themselves, if they got their collective shit together and said "OK who's ordering from the saver menu?" they could have just sent half the amount of people up.
But if they paid full price for the meals instead of getting the savings, I as a customer that was not inconvenienced by their ordering (just having to walk back and go to the other lav) nor am I a member of staff having to put the orders through or cook them, so its not an issue that irks me, I just felt they could have done it better for all concerned, cept the kitchen, they still had up to 20 meals to make.
And as it's a UK pub with a restraint (are they Bistro's?) it was cash first food later, so no stiffing on the bill and we pay decent enough that tips are not an issue.

[wolfie]

A large *crowd,* that is, what would be a large order except they're ordering separately, you probably can't get your bus through the drive-thru anyway, and you'd do better on distributing it accurately to come in even if doing otherwise were possible. Besides, those usually want to eat in anyway.

I ordered just in time, a group of a dozen to twenty students came in a tad before and were browsing the menu's.
The chain has some meals listed as 2 for £9.95 and almost at once each member came to the bar to order, even with three staff on hand they bunched up close, blocking other people getting to that area and I found later, they had bunched all their chairs so that no one could get to the gents either,

Large crowds coming in at the same time are a peeve of mine. Some of the "discount" bus chains use highway service plazas as their meal stops, so you get a "slug" of a few dozen people coming through at what's normally a slack time (so minimal staff). These are the sort of places that people like me stop at for a QUICK meal - but if the bus gets there first, individual customers wind up waiting over half an hour before they even get to the counter. When you're REQUIRED to shut down 14 hours after you first came on duty, you can't afford the delay.

Why can't service plazas that regularly get "hit" by buses (which have to be on some sort of schedule - so why not have a shift overlap for when the bus is due?) - or the pub in GT's case, have one server dedicated to people who are NOT part of the large group? As for the loo, that's a case of "Get a manager to tell them to stop blocking it - either by moving their chairs, or by leaving".

[HYHYBT]

HYHYBT: They seriously have the soda machines tied in directly to the cash registers? That can't possibly have been a cost-efficient change to make. Soda costs so little, who cares if someone gets a Large instead of a Medium by mistake?

It's very cost-efficient, because it saves TIME. Almost always, when you go to hand an order out the window, the drink(s) are ready; just put on the cap. It pours them in the order that they were totaled. You can also enter drinks directly or, if the automatic stuff isn't working, take the conveyor off and use it manually. Next time you're in s McDonald's where you can see inside the presenter's window from the customer side of the counter, watch it go.

[Andara Bledin]

And then, if there's any change at the window, it's a waste of cups, soda, and time. There's a point where automation is too automated.

Then again, there are a lot of reasons why I don't eat at McDonald's, and the awful food is only one of them.