Why does burger king take so long

Talk about a quick brekkie: Dunkin's drive-thru will only take Read this list before your next trip to the supermarket—your health depends on it.

A report unveils which fast-food restaurant is the speediest By Eat This, Not That! Read more. Read This Next. More in Restaurants. Restaurants come and go — frequently. According to CNBC , closure rates which can vary greatly average around 60 percent for new restaurants who haven't yet seen their first anniversary. That gets even higher when you look at restaurants that have been open for less than five years — in those cases, it's about 80 percent.

Those aren't great odds. And that's what makes the big chains even more impressive — they may have started out as little mom-and-pop shops, but they beat the odds and became juggernauts with logos recognized around the world. Take Burger King , for example. The first franchise, says The Balance Small Business , came just the next year. And from there? Well, everyone knows Burger King and their creepy king mascot today.

They have thousands of locations all over the globe, and they're the very definition of a fast food empire. They might seem untouchable, up there on high with the likes of McDonald's and But the truth is, they're not — they're faced with the need to constantly grow and change just like the rest of the market.

They need to keep up with changing trends, but in recent years, it hasn't been all smooth sailing and clear skies for the King. It's complicated. In May , Burger King announced something a bit strange: they wanted to close the numbers gap between themselves and McDonald's even more, so they were Yes, says Restaurant Business , and it's an interesting tactical move on their part. At the time of the announcement, they had around U.

In order to get closer to McDonald's numbers, they were going to start by closing between and locations. That was a huge jump in closures, as Burger King typically averaged about a to store closure rate every year in the lead-up to this pretty big announcement.

So, what gives? First, they're not all going to happen at once, and Burger King says the closures will, for the most part, happen on a rolling basis as it comes time for franchisee contracts to be renewed President of Burger King in the Americas, Chris Finazzo, put it this way: "Closing low-volume restaurants creates a virtual cycle of improved profitability.

In late , Burger King started talking about their brand new, futuristic design plans. Plans for Burger King locations included things like overhauling drive-thrus to give restaurants two lanes, and they were also looking at adding outdoor, digital menu boards, and integration with mobile apps.

They were also going to be adding self-service kiosks, and if that all sounds familiar, it should — it's what McDonald's has, for the most part, already done in what Restaurant Dive notes is a similarly-named campaign: "Experience of the Future.

At the time they made the announcement, they had no timeline in place for exactly when existing stores were going to get their facelifts, but it's no small investment. It's also one that falls heavily on the shoulders of franchisees, although Burger King has said they're going to be helping franchisees out and offering royalties to those who complete upgrades ahead of schedule.

Another potential explanation for the lag in drive-thru times compared with a year ago could be the return of longer menus. Many fast-food chains like McDonald's and Taco Bell drastically cut their menus during lockdowns to keep their smaller workforce from getting overwhelmed.

However, as economies reopened, chains began gradually adding some menu items back, although most took the opportunity to cull their options permanently. Skip Navigation. Key Points. Drive-thrus have become slower and less accurate in , according to SeeLevel HX's annual study. Last year wasn't a bad one for Burger King in terms of worldwide revenue when compared to its annual performance in the last decade. But it was a marked decline from the company's sales in and in , and lower than the company was reporting annually between and The chain did experience a better-than-expected first quarter in , with comparable sales up by 6.

That said, McDonald's saw its sales rise more than twice as much in the same period, increasing by In recent years, Burger King has had multiple marketing missteps that have resulted in money lost on unproductive campaigns, canceled promotions and products, and a general tarnishing of the brand.

These include the underwhelming results of the meatless Impossible Whopper rollout, which led to a paltry 0.