The Howard Company's Blog

Imagine the typical drive-thru restaurant layout - a box on a busy street, perhaps on a corner, an entry and exit driveway, a marked out drive-thru lane wrapping around the building, with the menu board towards the back and the payment and pick-up windows on the side. Next, imagine the typical drive-thru restaurant type - a QSR or a coffee shop. Now imagine that these descriptions do not fit your business. Drive-thrus are popping up in more and more places, in what a few years ago would have been considered very unconventional. Here are some examples:

The Howard Company did a social media survey that asked the question, 'Before entering a restaurant's drive-thru, how often do you know your exact order?' The answer options were 'Always, Sometimes, Rarely, and Never.' With 51 total participants, 37 individuals (73%) voted 'Sometimes, Rarely, or Never,' and only 14 individuals (27%) voted 'Always.'

The Howard Company has many innovative solutions and a customer favorite is our outdoor digital menu board. It is named the ‘Flex,’ as it allows businesses to be flexible with their content in the drive-thru. While onsite, printed graphics and digital menu boards can easily be switched out in a short amount of time. The best part is that the drive-thru can remain open during installation!

An intriguing public relations trend that many major restaurant chains have jumped on in the last few months is publishing images of their "drive-thru of the future." The renderings are sometimes flashy and futuristic, and the headlines tell the tale of 2020. But there is a lot more going on than what is indicated by the headlines.