In a way, the fast-food drive-thru might be the peak of American civilization. The ability to stop, order anything you want and have it handed to you within minutes, without even having to put your car in park, is nothing short of a miraculous testament to modern technological privilege.
But drive-thrus also cause a lot of problems, particularly for people trying to live or walk near one. As cities like St. Paul try to become more walkable, people are looking more critically at the complexities of the ubiquitous drive-thru.
Families love them, bikes do not
These days, cities like St. Paul are doing their best to limit drive-thrus through mixed-use zoning, which explicitly discourages “auto-oriented uses” like drive-thrus, car repair shops, and large surface parking lots. (Currently, drive-thrus in mixed-use “traditional neighborhood” zones require conditional use permits from the city, which allow city staff to alleviate their impacts.)
Changing the drive-thru culture does not come without a fight. (See, for example, my earlier Cityscape column on strip malls, where drive-thrus were often a sticking point with mall developers.) The appeal of drive-thrus is probably greatest for parents driving with small children, when getting into and out of the car is a big chore.
“Starbucks’ drive-thru was a lifesaver when I was a mom with a very fussy baby,” Sarah Beilke Champe told me. “Sometimes it was the only interaction I had with an adult during the day.”
On the flip side, drive-thrus can be inaccessible to anyone not in a car. Many fast-food restaurants close their walk-in restaurants late at night, while keeping their drive-thrus open (sometimes 24 hours). This practice actually prompted a lawsuit against a local White Castle back in 2009, when a woman on an electric scooter argued that drive-thru-only service amounted to discrimination.
(I’ve heard lots of stories of people riding bikes or walking dogs going through drive-thrus, but this is mostly just for banks or pharmacies.)
Never-ending nuisance of late-night hours
The worst-case scenario for an urban drive-thru has to be the Snelling Avenue Taco Bell, which because of a historical accident is pushed up right next to a residential neighborhood.
Because its original permit dates back to 1973, when the company was called Zantigo, the city has almost no regulatory leverage over the restaurant. This was before the modern drive-thru existed, and well before the emphasis on late-night hours, so the restaurant’s “special use permit” came with no strings attached — leaving the city and neighborhood with few controls over things like hours, noise levels, or security concerns.
The Taco Bell drive-thru debate came to a head this summer as the company proposed to rebuild the decades-old building and redesign the drive-thru, which would require a “conditional use permit” from the city.
“The whole theater of the drive-thru experience is pretty fascinating,” Kristine Vesley, who lives directly behind the Taco Bell, told me. “People love that ritual of pushing the speaker button and hearing the tinny worker voice asking them what they’d like to order. They love inching along in the line bopping in their seats and drumming on the steering wheel. They love the disembodied hand giving them a bag of greasy food.”
After weeks of deliberation and back-and-forth between Taco Bell and the city’s Zoning Committee, the issue came down to a few details: The city wanted hours reduced to 1 a.m. on weekends, and a security guard on site, but the company balked at the proposal. In the end, profits outweighed politeness, and Border Foods withdrew their application.
“We’re really disappointed that Border Foods was such a sore loser,” Kristine Vesley told me after the final hearing. “A 2 a.m. closing was their line in the sand, even though other similarly situated Taco Bells close at midnight during the week and 1 a.m. on weekends. We objected to the intensity of this drive-thru use in this particular location, more like a wild after-party with nine cars idling, full of occupants yelling and radios blaring and horns honking — open 22 hours per day, and only because of a flukey old permit. Having this Taco Bell drive-thru operating for five to six hours per day without the building and rest rooms open is just stupid.”
Blight on walkability
Another dynamic is that drive-thrus damage walkability because they require so many curb cuts cut into the street. For example, just past downtown along Saint Paul’s West 7th Street, hotels and apartments are quickly rising in long-empty parking lots.
The new development prompted questions when, last year, a drive-thru proposal emerged that would have transformed an old Dairy Queen into a drive-thru Brueggers/Caribou hybrid. It would have required two loops of car lanes surrounding a small, one-story restaurant.
According to Yust, the more that driveways are built up and onto the sidewalk, and the more cars are driving over them, people will be less likely to walk around.
“The future of West 7th is not a car-oriented street,” Yust said. “If you’re walking down the street, you don’t want to walk through two cut-thrus within 30 feet of each other. Plus they were asking for more parking spaces than the minimum. They could have put a two-story building there, and that would have been fine. But, it was clear that they wanted to keep the neighborhood paved over.”
After meeting resistance from the local neighborhood group, the developer withdrew the application. To this day, the Dairy Queen remains empty, and the land is used mostly for Xcel Center event parking.
A fit for marginal spaces?
Not all drive-thrus are immediately shot down. The Southeast corner of Snelling and Marshall is an awkward space, where a drive-thru might be the only reasonable fit. For the last few decades, the site has housed a bike shop, a (long-shuttered) car-repair place, and a drive-thru coffee kiosk where a lonely employee sat in a tiny box distributing hot coffee to passing drivers.
But as the corner changes with the new Snelling Avenue bridge and new mixed-use developments just blocks away, plans for the oddly shaped parcel have prompted debate in the neighborhood. This summer, a developer approached the neighborhood with a proposal for a drive-thru Starbucks.
“Many of us [in the neighborhood] feel that a drive-thru does not belong there,” Anne White, who chairs the land use committee for her neighborhood group, told me. “This a place where we’re trying to get transit-oriented development, and to make it more walkable. This is just completely in the wrong direction. It’s a suburban model but apparently it increases their profit by 40 percent over not having a drive-thru.”
The primary concern for the neighborhood group is that the drive-thru proposal won’t do anything to improve the surrounding neighborhood, and that it might cause massive traffic headaches at the busy intersection. Indeed, the developer has gone through multiple revisions with MnDOT and the city, trying to figure out just how many left-turn lanes and how much “stacking” (i.e. spaces where cars can idle as they queue up) the spot will require.
“This site has been a mess for 20 years,” Anne White said. “Its not a beautiful location by any means, its east side and south side have great big retaining walls [and] essentially people voted in favor. They felt that Starbucks had done as much as they can do to make this more palatable, and that we should let them go ahead.”
In the end, the committee members held their noses and voted to approve the Starbucks’ plans, citing the awkwardness of the site for more walkable developments. The plan will go to the city for consideration later this year.
The oldest type of drive-through?
Gas stations seem to fall into this category, more or less.
Not a fan
There are bigger issues to get riled about, but I’m not a fan of drive-thrus. I find them dehumanizing, and I think it’s a waste of gas & contributes air pollution to have a line of cars idling while they’re waiting for their happy meals or lattes. And I find it rude when the staff behind the counter interrupt my service so that they can speak to some unseen individual through their headset. I’d rather park the car, walk inside, and interact with a live human being. And check out the vibe of the place.
I’m not a fan of fast-food joints either: the factory pre-fab food, the general poor quality nutrition that comes with it, and all the garbage…
Gimme slow food any day, prepared by humans, served by humans, served on real dishes that can be washed and reused…
Good for you
I drive 10-12 hours a day, all over town. I don’t get a lunch break so if I would like a warm meal occasionally the drive thru is my only option. To each their own huh?
Indeed! To each their own. Some slow food words of wisdom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSaBESFNhvQ
You don’t get a lunch break?
I bet your employer does.
Rules don’t apply
If the company is small enough. What are you gonna do? I’m liberal for a reason after all.
Seriously dude?!?! Ditch your old beat up gas guzzling car. They now make cars that shut off when they idle to save on gas and pollution. Or maybe you have not heard that.
Argh, the exhaust!
We have a Panera about a mile from our house that we eat at occasionally. We’d often sit outside, even on cooler days. They added a drive-thru this spring and now the outdoor seating is empty of people due to the build up of car exhaust from the line of cars idling next to it. We rarely eat there now.
Back In The Day
It’s been some time since I’ve purchased fast food; primarily because the less one eats it the better for one’s health. But there were occasions when I’d wake up a little late for work and not have time to make my own lunch. Sometimes I’d make a fast food run, and I’d always park and walk in and order. Almost invariably I’d get my order faster than if I’d been through the drive through. I guess 3-4 lines inside can handle more traffic than 1 drive through.
There is a Burger King on W 7th & 35E. Many moons ago I stopped there on the way home from somewhere, probably in the 10 o’clock hour. There were no vehicles in the drive thru, and when I pulled up to order no one got on the mic. I waited a minute, then honked once or twice, before just pulling up to the window. It was then I noticed a single family home right next to the King. Boy did I feel like a rude jerk for literally tooting my own horn at that hour of the night. I’m not anymore humble than I was then, but I toot my horn in a more respectful manner.
My old man used to ride his bike to the White Castle on White Bear Ave. Since it is their policy to not allow bikes in the drive thru, he just brought it inside. At least he didn’t have to stand in an ooil slick to get his sliders.