That's according to a new stidy from QSR Magazine, which unveiled its annual drive-thru study on Tuesday.
According to the magazine, the study determines the leading restaurant chains in several categories of drive-thru operations, such as wait time, service time, order accuracy, exterior appearance and speaker clarity. A group of six core chains were included in the study: Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Krystal, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s.
Restaurants were visited between the lunch hours of 11 am and 2:30 pm, and between the dinner hours of 4 pm and 7 pm.
The findings may surprise those that frequent fast-food drive-thrus.
Wendy's was found to have the best average service time, with an average time of 129.75 seconds. That's more than a minute better, on average, than Burger King, and about 20 seconds better than the next best rated restaurant, Taco Bell (149.69 seconds).
When it comes to accuracy, Chick-fil-A leads the pack with a 92.4 percent accuracy rate. Burger King, again, came in trailing the field—its accuracy rate was 83 percent, the worst of all the restaurants rated.
Chick-fil-A also had the highest percentage of very friendly staff members while Burger King was found to have the least percentage of very friendly staff members.
How would you rate your local fast-food drive-thru? Have any horror stories to tell? Or maybe you've had a great experience?
Here's how the study panned out:
Average Service Time
Restaurant Average in Seconds
Wendy's 129.75
Taco Bell 149.69
Bojangles' 171.61
Krystal 175.94
McDonald's 188.83
Chick-fil-A 190.06
Burger King 201.33
Average Overall Accuracy
Restaurant Rate
Chick-fil-A 92.4%
McDonald's 90.9%
Taco Bell 91.2%
Wendy's 89.9%
Burger King 83%
