There are 660,755 locations of quick service restaurants (QSRs) & full-service restaurants (FSRs) in the US, and total sales grew from $825 billion in 2018 to $863 billion by the end of 2019. Off-premise sales, which include delivery, takeout, drive-thru, and catering, represented 38% of total sales in 2018 and grew by 5.6% in 2019. QSRs make up 346,105 of this total and had 2018 sales of $256 billion, 70% of which came from drive-thru alone. By the end of 2019, QSRs grew by 4.9%, which is slower than the 5.1% growth the previous year but still faster than the 3.4% growth of FSRs for the same time period.

As off-premise ordering increases, drive-thru restaurants will need to find ways to maintain food quality, improve order accuracy and increase speed of service. Quick service and fast casual chains that do not have a robust technology deployment strategy run the risk of damaging their reputations. As more QSR operators balance dine-in orders with the multitude of ways consumers can now make a take-out order, they risk overlooking drive-thrus as a way to bridge the gap. Some chains, like Chipotle, are rethinking their drive-thrus as mobile order pickup stations, while others, like McDonald’s, are implementing conversational artificial intelligence software to increase check averages.