[Severian]

The biggest challenge to this is weather. Do you really want to roll down your window and get soaked in a rainstorm to pick a #1 with a diet coke?

Most drive-thrus I've ever seen (Ohio, US) have zero cover and you are completely exposed to whatever mother nature wants to throw at you. Even the service window itself may have a tiny 24" awning that barely helps. In fact in my experience during rain it makes it worse as you get runoff right on top of the vehicle since they don't have rain gutters.

[soco]

I would guess - and correct me if I'm wrong - that building a cover over that window was much cheaper than all this exercise they're trying. I mean low-tech solutions don't become invalid just because AI.

[raverbashing]

Yes but the top priced MBA consultants at very expensive "big 4" companies would have never thought of that

[ethbr1]

Oh, they definitely thought of that.

They were no doubt just told by their boss, and their boss's boss, to 'prove that McDonald's is using AI.'

[Suzuran]

Of course they do, the AI allows us to gouge the customers out of so much more. You must be new to this capitalism thing.

[hadlock]

That may be because it freezes there, and there's a hazard of ice falling on vehicles etc. In both Texas and California, generally the drive through order thing has a ~8x8' cover over it. It never freezes for more than a day or two in populated areas of TX and CA

[nsvd]

Interesting, almost all drive-throughs here have an awning.

[jjallen]

So cover them. Not sure how this could be so hard

[imglorp]

I bet they get tired of overheight vehicles smashing them. The few detracting from the many as usual?

[JohnFen]

I've seen lots of fast food places where there is covering. They avoid this problem by installing thick steel tubing in front of the covering so overheight vehicles hit that instead.