Need an easier way to get your Chipotle fix? How about ordering on your phone and picking up at a pick-up window? It’s a reality already at some Chipotle locations in Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Massachusetts and coming soon to a Chipotle near you in Virginia.
So here’s the deal, you can’t just pull up to the drive-thru window, order and pick up your food, like you would at say McDonald’s or Taco Bell. Instead the pick-up window is designed to do just what it says, pick up the food you previously ordered online through the Chipotle app. The way it’s set up now, (I can tell you from personal experience) is that you place your order online through the app, then when your order is ready, you walk into Chipotle and get it. The addition of the pick-up/drive-thru window eliminates the need to go inside the store. It doesn’t however, let you place your order in the drive-thru line, you have to place your order prior to getting in the line.
Pick-up windows are seeing an increase in popularity; Dunkin’ Donuts added it’s first pick-up line earlier this year. Starbucks also has a similar feature, but not a separate lane for orders through the app. All orders are funneled through the same line, but it’s still nice to have already ordered and paid ahead of time and all you have to do is simply drive thru and pick it up!
The Daily Meal checked in with Chipotle’s chief digital and information officer Curt Garner, and he had this to say about the new pick-up windows, “One of the problems that companies have struggled with for a long time is having digital orders or any sort of out-of-store order come in and interrupt the flow on the main line that is servicing customers in person. This drive-thru line will keep many of the chain’s digital-order customers out of the way of those ordering in-store, instead funneling them through a separate queue.”