Please pull ahead?

It was later than I normally eat. But after a later workout, two dogs who needed to be taken care of and several errands to run, I was hungry. I think it is alright to admit that. Sure, it was 9 p.m., but I burned the calories I needed to burn and one late night meal wasn’t going to make a difference.

So I rolled into one of my “If-I’m-going-to-eat-a-little-late-this-one-meet-mycriteria” spots. I pulled up, powered down the window and checked the menu board.

“Can I get a minute?” I asked No response, so I kept checking the board.

“Good evening, I am ready when you are,” I shouted out. Nothing.

And there it was—a note, placed extremely non-strategically at the bottom of the speaker box that read: “Due to staff shortages, we are temporarily suspending orders at the drive-thru.”

What the @#@#? This is not only one of my daughter’s go-to study places, but I had worked there a lot in those pre-pandemic days. When I went inside, there were four people (four) milling around the counter.

And that is where my story ends. But it is where it ends for the restaurant industry. In a time when the way consumers buy is changing at a rapid pace, that good old fast-food drive-thru window is changing, too. Multiple lanes. Easy-to-navigate digital menu boards. Workers taking orders via iPads. The industry is trying.

Other than having your food delivered (talk about changing the game, right), help is on the way. Several restaurant companies out there are using automated artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help bolster productivity.

Why is that important? Well, other than me having to get out of the car (hey, I heard that), a recent TechCrunch survey found that “68% of consumers aged 18 to 44 years old said they were more likely to go to a drive-thru if it offers a celebrity voice.”

Yeah, I get it, I am not in that age group, nor am I a frequent fast-food visitor now that my daughter is driving. But I am pleased that by trying to keep one of our nation’s favorite pastimes (sorry baseball) intact, we can still have some normalcy before the robots take over everything (kidding folks. But am I?).

By the way, fast casual giants like McDonald’s and KFC already have been using the technology.

So, when I roll into a drive-thru and the robot from The Jetsons strolls out with my food, I will be sure to let you know.

Ain’t technology grand.