If a restaurant does not have a drive-thru, a dashers only choice is to go in
If a restaurant does not have a drive-thru, a dasher will obviously not be able to use a drive-thru service. With dine-in restaurants such as Buffalo Wild Wings, Apple Bees, Outback Steakhouse, etc. you will always have to go in. The good thing about these restaurants though is that you generally do not even have to place the order yourself. When you arrive at the merchant, the food is ready for you to take and you can be on your way. Well, at least it supposed to be that way. Any experienced dasher knows that far too many times we have to sit around the restaurant waiting around. This is a whole other subject though.
Also, most of the smaller mom-and-pop restaurants will not have a drive-thru. Many of these merchants will be located in a shopping center type environment. Lots of small Mexican restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Indian restaurants, etc. are a prime example of these types of merchants. Again, Doordash will usually place the order themselves directly to the merchant, and you just go in and pick up the food. With most of these restaurants, you will have to pay with your red card.
Also, most of the smaller mom-and-pop restaurants will not have a drive-thru. Many of these merchants will be located in a shopping center type environment. Lots of small Mexican restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Indian restaurants, etc. are a prime example of these types of merchants. Again, Doordash will usually place the order themselves directly to the merchant, and you just go in and pick up the food. With most of these restaurants, you will have to pay with your red card.
A Doordash driver should always use the Drive-Thru at all fast food chains
When we are talking about using the drive-thru, we are generally talking about the chain type restaurants. We are talking about McDonalds, Jack in the Box, El Pollo Loco, Chick-Fil-A, Carl's Jr., etc. With these merchants you will always have a choice of going in and ordering, or going through the drive-thru.
As a dasher, you always want to pick up the food and make the delivery to the customer as soon as possible. When arriving at the merchant, you will sometimes see a long drive-thru that looks like it will take forever to get through. You may think that you can get out of this by just going in the restaurant and getting the food from inside. After all, it might not look like there are that many people inside. This will be one of the biggest mistakes that you can make, and you will waste a lot of precious time.
When I first started dashing, I already knew that it wouldn't be too smart to go inside of a restaurant and order when I'm in a rush. It is just something I learned when I was young, and I'm sure a lot of other people have too, but surely there are those that never really gave this much thought. When you go inside and place an order, you will wait longer for your food. A restaurant pretty much gives priority service to drive-thru customers. They have a very good reason to do this. It is not that you are not as important or a lesser valued customer. The reason is that they have to keep their drive-thru line moving. They cannot have a mile long line of cars waiting for their food. They have to get those drive-thru customers taken care of as soon as possible.
This means that you are gong to want to be part of that drive-thru line. You are going to want to be a priority customer that they want to get rid of as soon as possible. When you appear to be a dine-in customer, the restaurant usually assumes that you will be eating there because most people on the go will usually use the drive-thru. I know, some people don't have a car and go inside for to go orders, but the workers will usually assume that you have time on your hands. The only time that I will ever go into one of these restaurants is if I have to use their restroom. I'll order first, take care of my business and by the time I get out the food will be ready. Happy dashing!
When I first started dashing, I already knew that it wouldn't be too smart to go inside of a restaurant and order when I'm in a rush. It is just something I learned when I was young, and I'm sure a lot of other people have too, but surely there are those that never really gave this much thought. When you go inside and place an order, you will wait longer for your food. A restaurant pretty much gives priority service to drive-thru customers. They have a very good reason to do this. It is not that you are not as important or a lesser valued customer. The reason is that they have to keep their drive-thru line moving. They cannot have a mile long line of cars waiting for their food. They have to get those drive-thru customers taken care of as soon as possible.
This means that you are gong to want to be part of that drive-thru line. You are going to want to be a priority customer that they want to get rid of as soon as possible. When you appear to be a dine-in customer, the restaurant usually assumes that you will be eating there because most people on the go will usually use the drive-thru. I know, some people don't have a car and go inside for to go orders, but the workers will usually assume that you have time on your hands. The only time that I will ever go into one of these restaurants is if I have to use their restroom. I'll order first, take care of my business and by the time I get out the food will be ready. Happy dashing!
I strongly disagree with you about the length of time you end up having to wait for food at drive-throughs vs. inside the restaurant. I’ve made over 700 Doordash deliveries, and I would estimate that my average wait time at a fast food drive-through has been 25-30 minutes (one time I had to wait over 45 minutes at a late night drive-through to pick up an order for a customer staying at a hotel right across the street!!!), whereas the average wait time is MUCH shorter than that when I’m able to go inside the restaurant. You say that restaurants give priority to drive-through customers because they don’t want to have a line a mile long, but invariably when I go to get a customers food at a drive-through, there are at least 6 or 7 cars ahead of me, and the line moves at a snail’s pace. So, I’m sorry, but I have to completely disagree with you. Whenever I have an option, I always choose to go inside the restaurant to get the customers food as opposed to waiting in the drive-through line, because it’s WAY faster, and the idea is to get the customer their food on time, not 30 minutes late!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment JC. Interesting that you have had a completely different experience than I have. The restaurants that you have spoken of having you wait a half-hour or so are really doing something wrong, and there is no way that I would personally ever go back to that restaurant. Of course I am talking about personally if I were getting food for myself. That is just a bad customer service experience.
ReplyDeleteOf course this is a whole different story as we are talking about picking up and delivering food for somebody else. The restaurants that you speak of remind me of a McDonald's that I used to always pick up food for, and would always wait a half hour. They were just terrible! I did not mind the wait though because these deliveries were for Uber Eats. At that time, I was getting a 2.0 boost which was double pay and Uber Eats, unlike Doordash, also actually pays wait time. I would earn about $20 for each of these orders so I was okay with it. If they were Doordash orders, I would have never accepted this restaurant. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with OP. Drive thru's r quicker in my XP. I feel like if u walk in and give the impression like ur a courier (i.e DD logo mask or insulated bag) then they will disregard u completely
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input. After all these years I'll stay say that generally the drive-thru is quicker than going inside of a restaurant.
DeleteIn my area, most restaurants make you come inside. Everytime I pull up to a drive thru I'm told I have to come inside.
ReplyDeleteSome merchants will make you come in. You are right about that. In my area, the local Wendy's will make food delivery drivers go inside, but they are just about the only ones. Everyone else doesn't care if you use the drive-thru or go in. What can we say though, if a merchant says we must go in, then we must go in :)
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