Since the pandemic, the quality of to go/drive-thru service at restaurants has steeply declined. Let me be clear, I'm not saying whether I blame restaurants for the poor service, I'm just saying that the decline is real. I had not gone anywhere where the service has actually IMPROVED during the pandemic. Well, not until this past weekend.
As a family, we rarely eat at Chick-Fil-A. Not due to any political reasons, their location just isn't that close to the house. While we were out shopping, I really wanted Chicken and Lemonade so we went to Chick-Fil-A. The drive-thru line was wrapped around the building. I wasn't going to wait in that line, but my wife assured me it wasn't like other fast food restaurants. Within 2 minutes, the first employee greeted me at my car in person:
"Hello sir, may I take your order?" I proceeded to purchase around $28 in chicken for the family. The young lady took our order on a tablet and read it back to us. She asked our first name for the order. After we ordered, we rolled up about 20 feet and were greeted by a second teenager.
"That will be $28." I handed him my Visa. "Excellent. Around the corner you'll get your receipt.
"Are you Fred?" Asked teenager #3 about 20 more feet down the line. Yes. "Here's your receipt, your food will be right up. Pull up to the drive-thru window.
At the drive thru window, the manager greeted me. "Name Please?" Fred. "That's going to be about 2 more minutes, please pull up to the Wait sign. Thank you very much."
Another teenager came to my window after about 2 minutes and asked "are you Fred?" Yes. Here's your order. Everything was right, all condiments and utensils were inside.
Despite there being 20 cars in front of us, Chick-Fil-A pushed a large order out in about 6-7 minutes. I have never seen a long drive-thru line move so fast.
Ever. Pandemic or no pandemic.