How to Start a Drive-Thru Restaurant: 10 Tips & Tricks for Success

Are you ready to expand your restaurant and are looking for ideas that will increase both revenue and client satisfaction? How about adding a drive-thru to your business model? 40% of US customers use drive-thrus to buy fast food.

If you own a fast-food establishment, you know clients want their food to be delicious, but they also want it to be served fast. A drive-thru could help you provide customers with a new way to place orders that is more convenient for them.

Convenience (62%) and faster service (47%) are the main reasons why customers like drive-thrus.

In this article, you will learn how to start a drive-thru restaurant, complete with tips and tricks to ensure the new addition stands the test of time.

How to Start a Drive-Thru Restaurant: 10 Pivotal Steps

A drive-thru restaurant can significantly increase your revenue because it empowers you to serve a large number of clients in a short amount of time. Follow these tips if you want your profit to grow:

1. Do your research

You don’t want to open a drive-thru that will easily blend in with the rest and go unnoticed. You want to start a business that will stand out from the competition and become the next viral place.

To do so, you need to research the market in your area and find out:

• Potential customer’s preferences: what would they like to eat at a drive-thru? How do they like to order? What price are they willing to pay? You can use online survey tools to gather feedback or even ask your actual clients about it on social media;
• Competitor offerings: how many other drive-thru businesses are in your area? What food do they offer and what is their type of service? Visit these restaurants and take some time to observe customer behavior;
• Drive-thru trends: attend industry events to find out what is new in the fast food world and how you could integrate these trends into your business model.

Read more: Market Research for Restaurants 101: Guide to Long-Term Success

2. Create a thorough business plan

If you already own a restaurant, creating a business plan shouldn’t be a challenge for you. Carving an efficient one will help you both attract potential investors and keep you on track while giving you the tools to face potential challenges.

How to start a drive-thru restaurant? Concoct a business plan that must include:

• A clear vision statement: describing values and highlighting the benefits the new drive-thru will have for clients;
• Positioning on the market: with details such as type of cuisine, pricing strategy, and type of service;
• Detailed financial projections: with both the money you plan to spend and the financial goals, all on a clear timeline.

Read more: How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan: 6 Practical Tips & Tricks

3. Settle on a location

Securing a location for a drive-thru is a bit different than settling on a location for a normal restaurant because you have to consider more factors. As an established restaurant owner, you have two options:

• Add a drive-thru to your existing location: do you have enough space so people can safely drive when ordering? Do you have the possibility to add a lot of parking spaces? Will you be able to get the necessary permits for your actual location?
• Find a new space: if you didn’t answer yes to all the above questions, then it is better to expand your place with a new location that can fit a drive-thru.

Read more: Restaurant Location Analysis: How to Choose the Best Restaurant Location

Here are the factors you must review when you want to know how to start a drive-thru restaurant in a new location:

• Demographics: if you did your market research, then you know the area where there is the highest interest for the type of drive-thru you want to open. For example, a high-end fast food won’t be a success if the average salary is very low in the chosen area;
• Competition: you want to be close to your target market, but not very close to other competitors because it will make it hard for clients to choose and you may lose them;
• Cost and accessibility: you may have to settle for your second-best choice if the rent/mortgage place is cheaper because you don’t want to overspend and decrease your profit. Moreover, the easier the new place is to access, the more customers you will get.

Read more: Your Complete Guide to Opening a Second Restaurant Location

4. Ensure you have all permits and licenses

Before you invest even a single dollar in your new location, research your local laws and find out all the permits and licenses you need. You don’t want to spend a lot of money and effort on this new establishment, only to discover you can’t open it legally.

While it will be different for each city, here are the main permits you will need:

• Health & Safety Certifications: you don’t want to risk someone getting sick because it will lead to fines and even closure.
• Food Handler Permits: all your new employees must be certified to handle food to ensure proper food safety;
• Business Operation Permits: different from the ones you already have for your restaurant because you are expanding your space;

5. Recruit new staff

If you want to know how to start a drive-thru restaurant, think about the first thing your clients will notice and remember. The answer is your employees, of course, because they will be the ones interacting with customers and creating a great experience.

That’s why it is important to start on the right food and choose employees that will make your business a success. Here are a few tips:

• Offer competitive salaries and benefits to attract the best employees on the market;
• Clearly outline responsibilities for every role to promote accountability and make monitoring a breeze;
• List the skills and expectations for each role so candidates only apply if they are a good fit.

If you want a detailed guide on how to hire productive staff, check out our dedicated article on restaurant staff hiring.

6. Decide on the type of ordering you will provide

One of the key factors when learning how to start a drive-thru restaurant is choosing the way you will allow customers to order. There are a variety of options and some are better than others because they make it easier for your customers and prevent mistakes. Here are your options:

• Classic ordering through a speaker: you encounter it in most drive-throughs because it is simple to implement. While easy to set up, it can lead to order errors as employees might misunderstand what a customer tells them over the intercom;
• Staff members come outside with a tablet to take the order: it makes the ordering more personal because they see the employee, but it also increases your labor costs as you will have to hire more people;
• QR code ordering: as soon as customers arrive, they can scan the code, browse the menu, and easily order directly on their phones;
• Online ordering: clients can browse the menu at their own pace at home and order directly on your website. All they have to do is drive to your location and pick up your delicious food.

The last two options are the best if you want to increase client satisfaction and enjoy a big profit. The good news is you can implement them both in less than 10 minutes with the online ordering system from GloriaFood. Moreover, it’s entirely free!

7. Design the space for maximum efficiency

If you want your reviews to always be positive, you need to give clients what they expect from a drive-thru restaurant: an easy way to order food and very little waiting time to receive their orders.

Here are some design elements to consider when learning how to start a drive-thru restaurant:

• Create a kitchen layout to maximize productivity and prevent accidents: from the equipment placement to the floors, everything should be placed to help your employees do their jobs as fast as possible. Don’t forget about anti-slip features because accidents are a sure way to lawsuits and loss of profit;
• Ensure a constant flow through the drive-thru: to serve as many customers as possible, there should be considerable space between the ordering window and the pick-up one so cars that are waiting for their orders don’t block the ones that are waiting to place an order;
• Add clear signage: don’t let customers guess, tell them exactly what to do. For example, where and how to place orders and what to do after.

Read more: 15 Restaurant Design Tips That Will Attract More Customers

8. Invest in proper equipment

Expanding your restaurant will require investing in new equipment necessary to run a drive-thru business. On top of the classic ones required for food preparation, you will also need:

• A big takeout window: the bigger, the better. It would be ideal if it could fit two people because employees will be able to handle orders faster and easier, with one handing out orders and one receiving payments;
• A high-quality speaker system: you don’t want interferences or barely intelligible sound that leads to order errors;
• Outside lighting: provide ample lighting sources that make ordering safe at any hour by eliminating dark spots;
• Security cameras: are a must, especially if you plan on keeping the drive-thru open late. They help both employees and customers feel safe at the drive-thru.

Read more: Restaurant Equipment List You Need to Open a Successful Restaurant

9. Create a short and enticing menu

When there are 10 cars behind you, you don’t have time to read and understand a long menu. A drive-thru restaurant needs a short menu that makes choosing a dish easy and also ensures the kitchen can prepare any menu item promptly.

Read more: Why Restaurants with Small Menus Are More Successful [+ Template]

Check out these tips on how to create the perfect drive-thru restaurant menu:

• Choose menu items that can be prepared easily: you can’t afford to leave people waiting, so you need to create dishes that are done almost in an instant, similar to the ones for takeaway and online ordering;
• Offer customization options: allow clients to add toppings and choose different sizes to increase customer satisfaction. Moreover, these added options will also increase your profit as the ingredients cost way less to prepare;

• Provide combo meals: make it easy for customers to decide on an order by creating combo offers that include everything they might want such as a main, side, and a drink.

Setting up your menu is easy with our online restaurant menu maker. Simply follow these steps to get started:

10. Market your new drive-thru business

After you complete all the previous steps on how to start a drive-thru restaurant, it’s time to get customers in their cars and on the way to your business. The key is to market your new expansion to your target market.

Follow these tips to let the world know about your drive-thru:

• Update your website with the new location: or create a restaurant website if you don’t have one. If you are on the lookout for a sales and SEO-optimized website that will help you rank on the first page of Google, you can generate one in less than 10 minutes with GloriaFood;

• Add the drive-thru service on your Google Business Profile: to let potential customers know where they can find you;
• Tell followers on social media: create a social media campaign, complete with contests and giveaways to launch your new drive-thru restaurant;
• Offer promotions: for example, get people to place their first orders at your drive-thru by offering them a discount or offer a freebie for the first 100 orders. You can use our restaurant marketing software to create a variety of promos in minutes:

Final Words

Now that you know how to start a drive-thru restaurant, it is up to you to do the work. If the research shows you it will be a profitable venture, go ahead and design the expansion, hire new staff, and buy the new equipment. You can always rely on our online ordering system and its features to help you make it big.