I'm sure no one has to convince you about the viability and success of hamburger, taco, and coffee drive-thru business concepts. Similarly, if other types of restaurant concepts are already attracting numerous consumers and generating profits, we can assume that they will also do extremely well if executed from a drive-up service window.

The key to creating a thriving drive-thru restaurant is built on the same fundamentals that are essential to the success of any foodservice establishment, specifically: 1. the food has to look and taste great, 2. it needs to be prepared in a timely fashion, and, 3. it needs to be reasonably priced.

Speed of service is extremely important for the success of a drive-thru restaurant. This means you'll need to find employees who know how to hustle, but you'll also need to select menu items that can be prepared and served within 90 seconds of being ordered, 2 minutes max! Menu items that take longer than this to prepare should be excluded from your menu, or if possible, procedures to partially cook or anticipate cook these items will need to be implemented.

For example, if your concept involves serving half-pound gourmet hamburgers, then you will not be able to cook the hamburger patty from raw to 130°F (medium), and assemble a finished hamburger, in 2-minutes or less. However, you could stay ahead of demand by always having a few burger patties cooking on the grill, and then moving them to a food warmer until they are needed. Then, when an order is received, the pre-cooked burger patty can be removed from the warmer, topped with cheese and any other precooked ingredients, (such as slices of bacon, grilled onions or mushrooms), and popped into a gas salamander (broiler) for a few seconds to melt the cheese.

A word of caution: if you cannot produce and deliver menu items within 90-seconds to 2-minutes, your line of waiting customers may become excessively long, and they might determine that the wait time has become intolerable and leave. If this occurs on a regular basis, they may decide to never return to your business! ☹️

To further ensure quick service, you would be wise to keep the number of selections on your menu limited. In some instances, successful businesses have been built around just 1 or 2 signature items. Some good examples of this are "Geno's Cheesesteak Sandwich" in Philadelphia, "Tommy's Famous Chili Cheeseburger" in Los Angeles, and "Katz's Deli Pastrami Sandwich" in New York City. Developing a "one-hit-wonder" can be difficult, so you would probably be wise to build your menu around a few items. To keep things simple, avoid confusion, and allow for quick preparation, I suggest limiting your menu selections to no more than 8 to 10 items, a dozen tops!

For example, many full-service Chinese restaurants have a menu of 50 to 100 items. Having this many selections would certainly confuse most customers and bog-down things at the time of ordering. It would probably also be a nightmare for your cooks to prepare this many items. So, if this is your concept, I would suggest preparing only the 10 to 12 most popular items typically ordered at Chinese restaurants. This would probably include menu selections similar to the following:

• Pot Stickers
• Spring Rolls
• Wonton Soup
• Kung Pao Chicken
• General Tso Chicken
• Chow Mein
• Sweet & Sour Pork
• Moo Shu Pork
• Ma Po Tofu
• Peking Duck
• Fried Rice

Having menu boards, with an intercom system, located 3 or 4 car lengths before your service window, and equipping your cashier(s) and cooks with headsets, will allow your employees to start processing the customer's order immediately upon hearing it. Depending upon your building size, and its location on a property, you may choose to have a single service window, or one on each side of the building (like most coffee drive-thrus), or 2 windows on the same side, one for taking orders and payment, and the second for handing finished orders to the customer. You may also want to provide your customers with the option of ordering and paying online. Use a system similar to what sit-down restaurants use, where the customer has to select a specific available time slot for picking-up their order. In this way you can block out or limit online orders during your busiest hours of each meal period, so your staff will not become overwhelmed with business.

So, taking all the afore mentioned factors into consideration, let's explore some drive-thru restaurant concepts that have the potential to be very successful. Keep in mind that the titles I have adopted for the following concepts may already be registered trademarks for existing businesses or products. Make sure you thoroughly research any business name you may be considering, and have your attorney help you with that search, and eventual business name registration.

While hamburger drive-thru restaurants have been around for half a century or more, and probably outnumber any other type, gourmet hamburger drive-thrus aren't as easy to find. Be sure to use high-quality meat, and consider topping your burgers with ingredients like, bacon, grilled onions, sautéed mushrooms, roasted chilies, and a variety of cheeses like, cheddar, swiss, pepper-jack, and crumbled bleu. Served with a side of golden fries or crispy onion rings, and washed down with a hand-scooped ice cream milkshake, this concept is a winner! Hamburgers are the number-1 item purchased at foodservice establishments, so exciting opportunities still exist in this category for a drive-thru!

The fast food taco chain with the "Bell" has a following for their crispy shell, ground beef-filled tacos. But, anyone who has been to an authentic Mexican Taqueria understands that the food is different, and arguably better! Shredded beef, roasted chicken, pork carnitas, beef carne asada, and crispy-fried fish are standard taco meats, topped with minced onion, chopped cilantro, and homemade salsas. Add beans and / or Mexican rice, roll into a larger flour tortilla, and a magnificent burrito can been created. Cover your burrito with tomatillo or ancho chili sauce, a dollop of sour cream and guacamole, and you'll have taste treats that can't be beat! Add crispy tortilla chips and a giant nacho to the menu, and you have the formula for a successful Mexican food drive-thru restaurant. And, don't forget, all you have to do is fill those burritos and tacos with ingredients like scrambled eggs, chorizo, chilies, tomatoes, cheese & salsa, and you can have a viable breakfast business as well!

Anyone who has been to New York City, or Philadelphia, understands that you can buy a piece of delicious pizza by the slice, almost anywhere. So why you can't buy a slice through a drive-up window is a mystery to me, and it's a potential business bonanza being overlooked by most pizza restaurant owners. The key is to not make more than about 6 to 8 varieties of pizzas, cooked just short of being done. Then when you get an order, pop a slice into a conveyor impinger oven set to 600°F, or into a gas salamander broiler, to reheat the slice and finish the cooking process. The pizza makers job is to make sure you don't run out of "slice pies." The second cook in the kitchen can pop the slices onto the conveyor or into the salamander. If you are currently selling a 16" pizza for $20, but sell slices (1/6 of pizza) for $5 each, you will actually be realizing $30 of income per pizza (a 50% increase over whole pie sales!)

When I was in High School I worked in an Italian restaurant, and was amazed at how quickly pasta dishes could be served! We boiled-off different pastas in advance until they were still slightly al dente. The pasta was then rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking process, drained, weighed into portions, and placed in plastic bags which were stored in the refrigerator. When a customer would order pasta, the refrigerated pasta was dumped into a basket and lowered into the near-boiling water of a pasta cooker. After about 30-seconds, the pasta was then plated and sauced, or poured into a sauté pan and combined with cream, mushrooms, parmesan, or other ingredients. Add some garlic bread, and offer pre-packaged green salad and you're in business!

Smoked pork ribs, beef brisket, chicken, ham, spicy sausage, who doesn't like great BBQ? Serve with homemade BBQ sauce, beans or fries, slaw, buttermilk biscuits with honey, and you'll have a line of cars ¼ mile long waiting to order! Offer BBQ meat sandwiches and combination plates and you'll be busy for lunch and dinner. Just load-up your smoker with meats and aromatic hardwood at the end of each day, set the thermostat to 180°F, and by lunch the following day you'll have an oven full of smoky, juicy, fall of the bone goodness!

Rotisserie chicken is a popular and healthy alternative to fried chicken. Pair a quarter, half, or whole chicken with a couple of side dishes like, seasoned rice, oven-roasted rosemary new potatoes, homemade mac & cheese, coleslaw, mixed green salad, and a couple of King's Hawaiian sweet rolls, and you've just made lunch or dinner easy for the folks in your community! (They line-up at Costco to buy rotisserie chickens, so save them the trip & hassle of having to leave their car!)

Southern Mediterranean & Middle Eastern foods have become very popular. Gyros, falafel, & shawarma sandwiches, hummus and baba ganoush dips with warm pita bread, and sweet treats like baklava are all nutritious and delicious.

Be it Chinese or Thai, a wok stir-fry will provide a tasty meal on the fly. Similar to Panda Express, selections can be cooked to order, or during busy times cooked in small batches, moved to a steam table, and then dished-up to order. Rice can be prepared using rice cookers, and items like fresh spring rolls can be made in advance and held in the refrigerator until ordered.

Munchies inspired by the appetizer menu of your favorite local brewpub can be the perfect concept for people who are looking for a tasty snack, a light lunch or dinner, or just wants to bring some munchies to a get-together with friends. Items like Buffalo wings, wagyu and carnitas sliders, nachos, loaded tater tots, jalapeño poppers, and crispy onion rings from a drive-up window?… brilliant!

Other than a fish-stick sandwich from a burger place, where can you get seafood from a drive-up window? Certainly there is a market for a variety of fresh, tasty, seafood items like, fish & chips, coconut shrimp, crispy calamari, shrimp cocktail, shrimp Louie salad, or how about a shrimp or oyster po' boy sandwich, smoked salmon cream cheese quesadilla, or crispy fish taco?

Dairy Queen does great offering sweet treats from a drive-up window. So, offer Ice cream by the cup, cone, or in a milkshake, desserts by the slice, creative cupcakes, cookies, dessert bars, and you'll be counting your profits! You can bake or create some of these desserts if you like, but there is a universe of tasty pre-made frozen dessert available from most foodservice purveyors. Keep it simple, incorporate a nice display case window visible to your customers from their cars, and your future will be sweet!

Panini are Italian inspired grilled sandwiches. The beauty of panini is that they are made in advance, so the majority of food prep is done before you open for business. When a sandwich is ordered, microwave it for about 30 to 45 seconds, and then toast it in a panini press for 1-minute. Just about any grilled sandwich you can imagine can be made as a panini, from Philly cheesesteak, tuna cheddar melt, or pastrami Ruben, to a savory Cubano, southwest BBQ chicken, or roast beef-horseradish cheddar melt with grilled onions. Add golden French fries or a variety of gourmet kettle chips by the bag, and you will have a decisive advantage over most sub sandwich shops. And yes, fill your sandwiches with scrambled eggs, cheese, and bacon, ham, or sausage, and you'll have a breakfast business as well!

While a quality all-beef hot dog on a fresh-baked bun with your favorite toppings is a good start (think Costco), there are many other possible variations of sausage sandwiches. How about a Chicago dog, or chili-cheese dog? Or, a Polish dog or Bratwurst with horseradish mustard and sauerkraut? Or, a sweet or spicy Italian sausage cover with grilled onions and peppers, marinara sauce and melted mozzarella cheese? Or, a spicy chorizo sausage garnished with chimichurri sauce? How about a Mexican dog, wrapped with bacon, covered with melted cheese, pickled jalapeno slices, and guacamole? Once again, offer a side of crispy French fries or a variety of gourmet potato chips to complement your customer's selection.

This concept is all about the liquids we consume. Whether it is a soft drink, bottle of water, bottled juice or energy drink, coffee, espresso drink, milkshake, or fruit smoothie, you can get it here… without having to get out of your car. This is a great concept for hot weather climates. Add a selection of bagged gourmet chips, pretzels, nuts, energy and candy bars and your shop will rock!

This is a food-expanded version of a Specialty Coffee drive-thru business. Of course it includes the equipment necessary to produce gourmet drip coffee, hot, iced and blended espresso drinks, and fruit smoothies. However, the flexibility to produce a wide variety of food items is the advantage that this concept provides. You'll have the ability to add breakfast and lunch sandwiches or panini, and items such as omelets, breakfast burritos, quiche, waffles, bagels with smears, scoop & bake and proof & bake pastries, cookies, brownies, etc. etc.

Most of the above mentioned concepts will typically require a building footprint falling between 450 sq. ft. (example: 15' x 30') and 960 sq. ft. (example: 24' x 40'). If your selected concept or menu offerings are extensive, or your inventory storage needs are extreme, or if part of the space is to include customer walk-in ordering or seating, then the building footprint size will probably need to grow larger. This is important to understand so that when you are talking to landlord about the possibility of locating your business on their property, both of you will understand the building footprint size that may be required.

For budgeting purposes, I strongly suggest you allow $400 (or more) per square foot. This would include all materials & labor for construction, including: foundation, framing, insulation, exterior siding, interior wall coverings (OSB or sheet rock), roof trusses/sheeting/shingles, flooring, doors, windows, all electrical & plumbing, restroom fixtures, HVAC, and your contractors & subcontractors labor and administrative fees.

Beyond the expense for construction of your building, you will also need to estimate and budget for: site development, building permitting & inspections, food service equipment & fixtures, foodservice small wares, financing charges, signage / menu boards / communication system, cash registers / monitors / printers, office furniture, safes & alarm system, opening inventory, pre-opening employee labor (cleaning / training), starting cash for POS registers & master change bank, Business licenses & permits, operating capital, capital for opening advertising, pre-opening rents & utility deposits, and a contingency fund for unexpected cost over-runs.

Need help, advice, or just want to bounce your ideas off of someone with years of foodservice and consulting experience? Need help with concept or menu development? Do you need someone to create a list of your major foodservice equipment needs, and put that list out for bid so you can obtain the best prices possible? Do you need someone to put together a foodservice small wares list for your business, with sources for purchase and projected cost? I can help!

Call: Ed Arvidson @ 541-408-8626 (M-F 9AM - 4PM PT)

Consulting per hour: $100 (USD)
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