By RTN Staff - 9.4.2020
Dedicated mobile ordering and an enhanced drive-thru experience are some of the technology-enabled features that Burger King is unveiling with a new restaurant design aimed at delivering flexibility and convenient options for how food can be ordered and delivered to improve the Burger King restaurant guest experience.
The plans were drafted by the in-house design group at Restaurant Brands International, Burger King’s parent company, which also owns Popeye’s and Tim Horton’s. The design was created with input from the company’s technology, operations and food innovation teams.
The new designs will provide multiple ordering and delivery modes and highlight a physical footprint 60% smaller than a traditional Burger King restaurant building and site.
Technology-enabled components of the restaurant blueprints include:
- Curbside Delivery. Advance orders placed through the mobile app will have dedicated parking spots for curbside delivery. Guests will be able to notify the restaurant team member upon arrival via the app as instructed on the parking signs.
- Pick Up Lockers. Mobile and delivery orders can also be picked up from coded food lockers facing the exterior of the restaurant. The food will come straight from the kitchen to the pick up lockers.
- Drive-Thru. A double or triple drive thru features digital menu boards and merchandising. The multi-lane ordering and pick-up expedites the process.
- Suspended Kitchen and Dining Room. A suspended kitchen and dining room above the drive-thru lanes will be configured to reduce the building footprint. Drive thru guests have their order delivered from the suspended kitchen by a conveyor belt system, and each lane has its own pick-up spot. This restaurant design option features a triple drive thru with a dedicated lane for delivery drivers. The design of this restaurant allows a 100% touchless experience.
“In March our in-house design and tech team accelerated new restaurant design plans and pushed the limits of what a Burger King restaurant could be,” said Josh Kobza, Restaurant Brands International Chief Operating Officer. “We took into consideration how consumer behaviors are changing and our guests will want to interact with our restaurants. The result is a new design concept that is attractive to guests and will allow our franchisees to maximize their return.”
“The designs we’ve created completely integrate restaurant functionality and technology. The restaurant of the tomorrow merges the best functional technology with unique modern design to elevate our Burger King guest experience,” said Rapha Abreu, Global Head of Design at Restaurant Brands International. “We designed the interior and exterior spaces like we had a blank sheet of paper, designing without preconceived notions of how a Burger King restaurant should look.”
Founded in 1954, the Burger King brand is the second largest fast food hamburger chain in the world, with more than 18,800 locations in more than 100 countries and U.S. territories. The first new designed restaurants are scheduled to be built in 2021 in Miami, Latin America and Caribbean.
