BECKLEY, W.V. (LOOTPRESS) – The Galleria Chick-fil-A (CFA), located at 1300 N Eisenhower Drive, has already broken service records only two days after implementing its new double drive-thru, according to Michelle Lowe, Marketing Director for all three of Beckley’s Chick-fil-A restaurants.
As social distancing guidelines continue to lessen, Beckley’s CFA is taking steps toward a full reopening. The restaurant is accomplishing this by entering into various reopening phases.
Lowe explained that the restaurant’s long-term goal is to reopen the dining room, but, due to the set up of the space, this cannot happen until Governor Jim Justice allows restaurants to open at 100 percent capacity without any social distancing restrictions.
Instead, the restaurant chose to introduce a double drive-thru, which not only helps mitigate traffic around the restaurant and neighboring streets but also helps move customers through the line faster than ever. Lowe says the use of the double drive-thru allows CFA to service an additional eight cars at one time.
Along with the extra drive-thru, the restaurant has also added team members at each lane who will take payments at the time of order rather than cars having to filter through one cash stand. Other changes include adjustments being made in the kitchen to meet the demand of the extra service and additional employees being placed both at the window and outside to assist the extra vehicles.
Since opening the second drive-thru on Monday, Lowe says the restaurant has already broken records for the number of customers served per hour and will soon be hiring more people to help get cars through even faster.
“The drive-thru is definitely working and we are already seeing that we are able to get a lot more people through and out of the street.”
Unlike the CFA located on Harper Road, the Eisenhower location was not designed to have two drive-thru lanes, meaning careful planning went into its execution.
“This is not something that we just did willy-nilly. We looked at about five other restaurants doing something like this with parking lots similar to ours,” Lowe said. “We know change is never easy. Anytime you change something there’s a learning curve for our guests and for us as well. Our end desire is always that we are able to be the fastest and serve our guests in the most efficient way possible.”
Lowe reminded that the restaurant does have alternative means of ordering, including ordering on the mobile app and picking up inside or ordering on the mobile app and picking up through the drive-thru. Lowe said these alternative options are great for customers with larger or more complicated orders.
Within the next month, the restaurant hopes to introduce the next phase of reopening by opening the restaurant to carry out. Although guests won’t be permitted to eat inside, they will be able to order and pick up their food in the dining room rather than mobile ordering or go through the drive-thru.
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