Talk:Drive-through

What is this?
Is the usual system that you place your order at one window, then drive to another one and collect it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kappa (talk • contribs) 09:46, 16 February 2005 (UTC)

I have also added information about these restaurants being locations where young men go to present their newly-bought or newly-modified cars — Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonMackay (talk • contribs) 03:38, 16 June 2005 (UTC)

Other drive-throughs?
What about including Drive through ATM machines, drive through pharmacy services etc? --Coffeelover 17:17, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

In 2005, one major fast food company announced plans to take drive through orders from a central location, the theory being that dedicated order takers would make fewer errors than the in-store order takers.

Which company is this? Any sources? --Arm 23:46, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * In the Spring of 2005 McDonald's announced that an undisclosed number of their stores were testing outsourced drive-through order taking. The voice repeating an order to a customer may belong to a person at a central call center in North Dakota (or Colorado Springs, depending on who's reporting it), who then electronically relays the order to the restaurant.  What’s being measured is whether off-site order-takers — who aren’t distracted by the need to make fries or count change — can reduce the number of incorrectly entered orders, McDonald’s CFO Matthew Paull told analysts in March.  Quicksilver 05:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC) =='

Also wasn't it that the "central location" (state) they were testing from had a lower minimum wage than any other state, thus potential reduction in employee costs -? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.221.26.163 (talk) 16:20, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

etiquette section?
Welcome to the Wikipedia Finishing School for Young Ladies Gentlemen.... surely an etiquette section is extraneous, it could even fall under a how-to and should be removed. I'll leave this point here and allow someone else to remove it, or tell me why I am wrong. Cheers, Jonomacdrones  (talk)  03:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Bottle stop
What is a bottle stop?! — Curran  (talk 04:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Stop through
Since when is a drivethrough the same as a drive-in?!! Or is everybody on WP too young to remember drive-ins...? The first is said to be The Pig Stand, opened by J.G.Kirby in Texas in 1921--& we used to have an A&W drive-in here for about 40yrs, before drivethrough ever happened... Trekphiler 09:07, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Maid-Rite Sandwich Shop claims to be first drive-thru, also in 1921. Art LaPella 16:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Drive-through liquor store
Current revision mentions "Alcohol at a drive-through liquor store" - I think someone is taking the p**s!190.16.115.254 07:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC) --JKeene 22:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Drive-through liquor stores do exist, although they may not be as common. I know of specific locations in Georgia and Florida, and I've seen them elsewhere.
 * they do exist, and I can get a Picture of one. 71.8.77.160 (talk) 19:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

thru over through
thru is the correct spelling for such a page, and the naming should be changed as appropriate. 84.13.21.169 (talk) 14:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC) --JKeene (talk) 20:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * "Drive-through" gets more google hits. Both names are currently mentioned, so I don't see any reason to change.
 * I have reviewed the Google results as well and I concur with User:Jkeene's analysis. Both spellings are in common use but "drive-through" is slightly more common.  --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * For the record, drive-thru gets 4.4 million hits on Google, drive-through gets 514,000 hits. --129.97.41.79 (talk) 08:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The usages seem fairly even, so please elucidate what possible benefit renaming a renaming bring to the article that would outweigh stirring up reams of arguments over national varieties of English? Whichever one you pick, roughly 50% of people will type in the other version, and redirects will sort them out perfectly adequately and efficiently. Knepflerle (talk) 19:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * AFAIK "thru" is not a proper word in any dialect of English, anymore than "Xmas" is. "Thru" is simply a handy abbreviation invented and used by sign-writers. I would be more inclined to use "through" throughout (thruout?) the article and relegate "thru" to a sentence to enlighten those who don't understand the concept of abbreviations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.183.201 (talk) 10:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I use thru in virtually all my writing. Not only is it used on drive thru signs, it's used on street signs (No thru trucks, traffic, streets, etc.) and often in engineering documents. Plus, I bet you couldn't find one single instance of "DRIVE THROUGH" on a sign anywhere, period. Not only is it a real alternative spelling, it's certainly the overwhelming usage in this case. --Tysto (talk) 22:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm American and I always spell it as "through" and was never taught that "thru" was a valid alternate spelling of "through." Just because a lot of people do something doesn't mean it's right (see argumentum ad populum). Merriam-Webster lists the "thru" spelling as the variant of the "through" spelling anyway and not the other way around. --Evice (talk) 22:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur with Evice and disagree with Tysto on this one. Thru is a colloquialism that was used on road signs simply because it's shorter. It's like how road signs don't have punctuation (about the only place in the U.S. that follows British usage) because it was discovered in studies that it's slightly easier to read road signs at 65 mph without punctuation.  What's easier to read at 65 mph has nothing to do with how one writes formal written English when at a desk at 0 mph.--Coolcaesar (talk) 12:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm American and I also always spell "through" as "through", like Evice. However, I spell "drive-thru" as such, and I can honestly say that, to the best of my knowledge, the title of this article is the first time in my 42-year life that I've seen it spelled "drive-through".  It is never, ever spelled that way anywhere that I've seen in the USA.  --76.113.200.14 (talk) 20:18, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

What's how it's spelt in the US got to do with anything?  raseaC talk to me 20:25, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Record section
I don't think this section has any relevancy to the article. It isn't sourced and pertains only to McDonald's 15-minute record times. The records listed are speculative, because I worked at a McDonald's in Monroe, Michigan that claimed to hold a national record of 210 cars in one hour (52½ cars every 15 minutes); there's even a plaque on the wall. Besides, whatever the record may be, who cares? It has no usefulness in this article. By that, I'm removing it. — №tǒŖïøŭş 4lĭfė   ♫   ♪  04:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Tagging
This article talk page was automatically added with WikiProject Food and drink banner as it falls under Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here -- TinucherianBot (talk) 09:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Non-American Drive-thru prevalence?
It is hinted at several times in the article that drive-thrus are not just an American phenomenon. I was wondering if this could be expanded upon at all. I know they're in Europe and Australia as well, but to what extent? Flatcurve (talk) 20:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Drive-throughs are common at fast food restaurants in Australia. McDonalds seems to have them at every location they physically can (with exception to shopping centre based restaurants). Same goes for Hungry Jacks and Burger King (apparently same company, except for some reason in Australia we seem to use both names (don't know why)). KFC, and Red Rooster are also the same. My source: Myself, I've travelled a fair bit of the Australian lands and witnessed that drive-throughs are common for fast food chains throughout Down Under. I'm not sure how you'd reference it other than that it is something anyone can observe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.221.26.163 (talk) 16:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Drive-throughs in the UK are common in provincial towns but don't seem to exist in cities. This is probably because in our cities, driving is a nightmare and people travel on foot with public transport. Land being so expensive, a drive-through would not be profitable in a UK city. However, in the provincial towns, land is relatively cheap and car use is high. Drive-throughs exist almost exclusively in retail parks and leisure parks. In Stevenage, which is a large town of around 80,000 inhabitants, there are 4 drive-through fastfooderies. It's also worth noting that the abbreviation "drive-thru" is never used in the UK, it's always written as "drive-through", even on the signage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.183.201 (talk) 10:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I added an image of a drive-through-only Tim Hortons in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, to show that drive-throughs exist in that country. Johnny Au  (talk/contributions) 22:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section
There is significant amounts of criticism against drive-throughs in academic journals and local newspapers, yet the article mentions nothing about it. The criticisms include pollution, noise, and obesity. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 22:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Eventually worked out this is the "discussion" referred to by the curiously placed NPOV tag on the main article, can User:Johnny Au or anyone else point to a few specific examples of the "significant amounts of criticism" so that these can be included in the article? If not should the tag perhaps be removed? Splateagle (talk) 12:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed; the lack of a sourced criticism section doesn't indicate POV so much as that an editor tagged rather than contributed. I've removed the tag. NebY (talk) 17:23, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Drive-through in autoracing
Why isn't any section talking about Drive-through as a penalty in races? Like Formula One, IndyCar Series, Formula Three, etc. --Minerva97 (talk) 18:29, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should make a new page called Drive-through (auto racing). =) --Minerva97 (talk) 19:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Wendy's
Various sources have stated that not only did Wendy's have its first "Pick-up Window" four years before McDonald's had its first drive-through, but Wendy's early success was partly due to it consistently using them, making them a serious competitor (example, 2016-04-20). However, I'm not sure how to fit this into the article without it sounding trivial. Mapsax (talk) 23:21, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

This article needs permanent protection
I just noticed this article was vandalized on 3 March 2014 with this edit which falsely attributed the invention of the drive-through to one "Jordan Martin". Unfortunately, because English Wikipedia's shrinking base of regular editors is spread way, way too thin, no one noticed this vandalism for eight years.

This evening, I just noticed that passage makes no sense. (As a lawyer, I get paid a lot for my talent to intuitively sense and ferret out flaws in stories.) So I checked against the source cited on Google Books (it had been cited by page but no one had added a direct link). Sure enough, the cited source makes no mention of Jordan Martin. It doesn't even credit the invention of the drive-through to anyone. It merely discusses the history of McDonald's Corporation and how the McDonald's brothers revolutionized fast food when they went from a drive-in format to a drive-thru format. Therefore, I have reverted the 2014 vandalism, pulled the citation as failing verification, and added a citation needed tag. Unfortunately, that misinformation was translated into the Italian and Indonesian versions of this article, which means someone needs to alert the editors on those versions of Wikipedia about this issue.

The drive-through is one of the most important and essential institutions of modern life, meaning this article is likely to be subject to similar vandalism in the future. It should be permanently protected, like other high-profile topics. --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:24, 18 December 2022 (UTC)