Is Mobile-Only Pickup More of a Convenience or Inconvenience?

Chick-fil-A opened its first-ever mobile pickup restaurant to address the growing demand for digital ordering and better manage wait times.

The location at 79th St. & 2^nd Ave. in New York City also supports delivery. No seating area or dine-in services are available.

Under the setup:

• Customers order ahead for delivery or carryout via the Chick-fil-A app or website.
• Geofencing alerts the restaurant that customers are on their way to expedite the process and ensure each meal is timed with their arrival.
• Inside the restaurant, an active status board screen shows customers and delivery drivers when their orders are ready in real time.
• Once ready, orders are distributed “with a smile so they can quickly be on their way.”

The opening comes as digital orders have grown to account for more than half of Chick-fil-A’s sales in some markets.

Nathaniel Cates, Chick-fil-A’s senior principal design lead, said, “While digital concepts are becoming more prevalent, it’s important that we evolve in a uniquely Chick-fil-A way — meeting the changing needs of our customers without compromising the signature service and care they’ve grown to know and love.”

Wait times continue to be the biggest complaint when it comes to mobile ordering, particularly for drive-thru pickup. Bluedot’s seventh installment of its “State of What Feeds Us” Report that came out last year found the biggest frustration with mobile order pickups to be the order not being ready upon arrival, cited by 42%. This was followed by the order being ready but still needing to wait (40%), the order being inaccurate (39%), and the order being cold (32%).

Starbucks was the first major chain to open a mobile-only pickup location with its first Starbucks Pickup unit arriving in 2019. The coffee chain now has nearly 100 Starbucks Pickup locations in the U.S., including three inside airports.

Many QSRs have since been experimenting with drive-thru only, walk-up windows, and other ways to speed pickup. Panera, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Taco Bell are among food establishments opening up digital-order-only concepts with limited or no seating in dense, urban marketplaces.

Drive-thru and walk-up restaurants tied to mobile ordering continue to gain in popularity. A survey of 2,000 U.S. adults from Dutch Bros found 47% indicating that they’d avoid going to a fast-food restaurant or coffee shop that didn’t have a drive-thru option.

However, a PYMNTS Intelligence study in collaboration with Paytronix based on a survey of nearly 2,500 U.S. consumers who regularly purchase food from restaurants found only 27% viewing a restaurant requiring order-ahead as a positive impact on their satisfaction. Among those planning to grab and go, only 48% felt positive about having only a mobile ordering option.