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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Chick-fil-A Begins Delivery Operation Out of DoorDash Ghost Kitchen Facility

Chick-fil-A is now expanding its presence in the SF Bay Area via a ghost kitchen. The Atlanta-based chain started operating a delivery-only concept this month using DoorDash’s newly opened ghost kitchen facility, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. As of now, the full Chick-fil-A menu is available for delivery during Chick-fil-A hours from DoorDash Kitchens.

This isn’t Chick-fil-A’s first foray into ghost kitchens, as the chain already rents space from Kitchen United’s Chicago location.

DoorDash opened DoorDash Kitchens in October of this year. The facility offers kitchen space to restaurants wanting to fulfill more off-premises orders without having to actually open a full restaurant. Chick-fil-A joins The Halal Guys, Nation’s Giant Hamburgers, Rooster & Rice, Humphry Slocombe as participating restaurants.

The Redwood City location, which will be the first of multiple DoorDash Kitchens facilities, serves multiple cities around the Peninsula, including Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Woodside, among others, so Chick-fil-A will be able to expand the small presence it already has in the Bay Area. Currently, the chain operates brick-and-mortar locations in San Jose and Sunnyvale.

Teaming up with DoorDash for a ghost kitchen operation is just one of many initiatives on Chick-fil-A’s part to boost off-premises orders around the country. The chain tested a meal kit program in 2018, where customers could try to recreate the Chick-fil-A experience at home. Shortly after, Chick-fil-A partnered with DoorDash for a much more traditional form of delivery across the U.S. Since then, the company has also introduced dine-in mobile ordering for customers, who can grab a seat at select brick-and-mortar locations and order from their phone without having to get in line. Chick-fil-A also operates a couple takeout-only brick-and-mortar locations where customers can order ahead via mobile app or get food at the pickup window. Besides a few lone tables outside, there is no dining room.

And with no dining room quickly becoming one of the new norms for restaurants everywhere, Chick-fil-A is wise to expand its off-premises strategy to include more ghost kitchens. Doubtless we’ll see it along with other national chains expand into other major cities in the near future.

Will Steve Easterbrook’s Departure Slow Down McDonald’s Tech Initiatives?

McDonald’s has fired CEO Steve Easterbrook after he engaged in a consensual relationship with an unnamed employee. The board voted on Friday to remove him, according to the Wall Street Journal. McDonald’s USA President Chris Kempczinksi was named the new CEO, effective immediately.

According to the WSJ, Kempczinksi noted he would maintain Easterbrook’s focus on tech, saying, “There isn’t going to be some radical strategic shift. The plan is working.”

Clearly, no sane executive in 2019 would reverse course on technology initiatives that could speed up and simplify restaurant operations while also meeting demand for delivery, convenience, etc. For McDonald’s, however, this executive shakeup could certainly slow the pace of change.

Under Easterbrook’s tenure, McDonald’s pursued an aggressive strategy around technology. In the last year alone, that included the acquisition of Dynamic Yield and subsequent rollout of the latter’s AI technology at McDonald’s drive-thru, buying up voice-tech startup Apprente and building a new tech innovation lab, expanding delivery with more third-party partners, and a heap of other developments that seem to land in the inboxes of us reporters every other day.

All this and more is part of McDonald’s Experience of the Future mandate for stores, an initiative that requires franchisees to update their store designs, invest in tools like self-order kiosks and new menu items (e.g., fresh beef), and curbside pickup.

Not surprisingly, McDonald’s franchisees have pushed back at these costly but not necessarily profitable changes. A recent Bloomberg article noted that “[Franchisees] object to the enormous costs of the project, which, for owners of several locations, can run into tens of millions of dollars, even with McDonald’s offering to subsidize 55 percent of the capital for the remodels.”

About a year ago, a group of U.S.-based McDonald’s franchisees formed the National Owners Association advocacy group to address some of these challenges. For example, franchisees were originally required to have their locations remodeled by 2020, a date that, after enough outcry, was pushed back to 2022 (albeit with caveats).

Easterbrook’s departure won’t stop tech innovation at McDonald’s. Nor should it. And to be clear, no one has officially yet stated any specific changes to the strategy. But the conversation around franchisee tensions has only grown louder in recent months, and under Kempczinksi’s leadership it’s possible McDonald’s could slow its pace on some of these developments or give franchisees more say in how to implement some of these initiatives without incurring some of their heavy costs. Meanwhile, McDonald’s has to somehow address its sluggish sales while still maintaining its edge over other QSRs, who are rapidly deploying self-order kiosks, AI in the drive-thru, and other high-tech solutions. Whether the chain can do that more effectively under Kempczinksi looks to be yet-another unanswered question in this ongoing McSaga.

KFC Is Testing Out a Drive-Thru-Only Concept Store in Australia

If you want a hint at what all drive-thrus of the future might look like, head to Australia, where KFC is piloting its first-ever drive-thru concept store.

The store, which will first be trialled in Newcastle, New South Wales, is the chain’s first drive-thru-only location and is meant to speed up the process of ordering, paying for, and collecting food while at the drive-thru.

Digital is the main focus here. Customers order ahead via the KFC mobile app, which will then generate a four-digit code. Once in the drive-thru lane, they key that code into a touchscreen receiver, which shoots the order to the kitchen where the food is made. Drivers then pull up to the main pickup window to retrieve the food.

KFC has also said this streamlined setup is ideal for delivery drivers picking up food, as it could cut down on how long they have to wait before collecting a customer’s order.

What’s potentially more exciting about this concept, though, is not what it will look like when the store opens in November, but what it could eventually become. Gary Mortimer, a retail expert at Queensland University of Technology, noted in a recent interview that while a drive-thru-only concept could speed up the process, in this iteration of KFC’s new store, customers still have to wait onsite for their food to be made. He then hinted at the potential of push notifications, which could be used to tell the customer when their food is ready and also alert the restaurant when a customer is less than a mile away.

That level of precise timing won’t make it into this first iteration of KFC’s new drive-thru only store, but the concept itself is a good indicator of what’s to come for drive-thrus all over the world as the restaurant industry goes more digital and customers expect their food faster.

Major QSRs still see over half their orders come from the drive-thru window. But at the same time, waits are getting longer. In response, tech companies and QSRs alike are implementing tech-driven initiatives to cut down those times. Dunkin’ has added dedicated drive-thru lanes for mobile orders, and Starbucks already offers a number of drive-thru/walk-up locations meant for speedier service in high-traffic areas.

KFC’s new store will still feature two lanes for more traditional drive-thru operations, where customers can order via a speaker phone that has a human being on the other hand. That human element will remain an important offering for QSRs implementing new tech concepts — for now. As customers grow more comfortable with digital, there’s a good chance the crackly speaker phone will fall by the wayside at some point.