Find original article at: https://www.constructiondive.com/news/burger-king-to-build-mobile-focused-restaurant-model-in-2021/584831/
The novel coronavirus pandemic has forced restaurants to rethink their building footprints and interior design to create a safer experience and minimize human-to-human interaction. Independent restaurants have been adding pickup windows and rethinking their interior dining rooms, while fast food chains have been adding additional off-premise channels, such as curbside. Taco Bell plans to open its first Go Mobile locations in Q1 2021, which will feature a traditional drive-thru lane, as well as a priority pickup lane for mobile orders.
Pre-COVID-19, Burger King was already considering upgrading the drive-thru experience with digital menus that offer location-based or situationally appropriate menu suggestions and personalized offers. It also had been updating hundreds of its locations with its “Burger King of Tomorrow” upgrade, which featured digital menu boards, double drive-thru lands and self-order kiosks. But the pandemic forced the company to change its focus.
Burger King’s comparable sales have struggled during the pandemic, declining 13.4% during Q2 2020. A design emphasizing off-premise channels could help it recoup lost sales in the long term, especially if this design is adopted throughout the U.S.
“In March our in-house design and tech team accelerated new restaurant design plans and pushed the limits of what a Burger King restaurant could be,” Restaurant Brands International Chief Operating Officer Josh Kobza said in a press release. “We took into consideration how consumer behaviors are changing and our guests will want to interact with our restaurants. The result is a new design concept that is attractive to guests and will allow our franchisees to maximize their return.”
Drive-thru sales rose industrywide 26% during April, May and June, according to The NPD Group, so creating more seamless drive-thru experiences will likely help process more orders. The drive-in model is also an interesting addition and could be piggy-backing on the success Sonic Drive-In has had during the pandemic. According to a Top Data report, the fast food chain was the favorite restaurant across the U.S. for the period from June 12, 2019 to June 12, 2020, based on data from Cuebiq.
“[Customers] probably still can’t go or maybe don’t want to go … [to a restaurant] where they’re likely to sit down, but they can get out of the house and go to a place like Sonic and get kind of the same experience and the comfort and relative safety of their own cars,” Sean Lansing, director of client strategy at Top Data, said.
The suspended kitchen design also appears to require less labor, especially with back-of-house workers delivering orders using a conveyor belt system instead of a staff member handing off orders to a customer. This could help reduce labor costs and assist in labor shortages that have continued even during a period of high unemployment.
Please be patient after posting, because your article must be reviewd by one of our editors.
Thank you!
Please complete the details below and we'll be in contact as soon as possible.