Thousands of Burger Kings are Going Digital for This Reason

The parent company of fast food chain Burger King, Restaurant Brands (QSR) announced this week that it will be adding digital drive-thrus to 10,000 of its Burger King locations.

The drive-thrus will be added to thousands of locations in both the U.S. and Canada by mid-2022. Burger King has over 18,675 locations that it operates globally.

Rival McDonald’s has already digitized their drive-thrus in recent years along with coffee giant Starbucks. The digital screens can show weather and promotions being offered.

With the coronavirus pandemic closing down inside eating at restaurants in many states, millions have opted for drive-thru pick ups at fast food chains.

“The drive-thru business has been a big focus throughout the pandemic. I think it has been a big part of our business for Burger King and Popeye’s for decades. We’ve seen it obviously be a very important growth opportunity in the last seven or eight months,” said Restaurant Brands CEO Jose Cil to Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade.

Restaurant Brands, who also own Popeye’s and Tim Horton’s, reported its third quarter financial results this week which revealed consolidated same-store sales falling 5.4% due to ongoing challenges from the pandemic.

Same-store sales at Popeye’s rose 17.4% while same-store sales at Burger King and Tim Horton’s fell 7% and 12.5%, respectively.

Restaurant Brands CEO Jose Cil said on the earnings call, “Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, we’ve mobilized behind a clear set of priorities to confront the crisis and our considerable progress behind these objectives over the past seven months has helped drive a significant recovery across our business. The recovery we’ve seen since March highlights the resilience of our three iconic brands and our network of strong and well-capitalized partners around the world. It’s also a testament to the incredibly hard work of our restaurant team members, franchisees and employees to reopen the restaurants and continue serving our guests through this difficult time.”

He added, “In the third quarter, our continued recovery reflects the strength of our platform and positioning, and we shared some of the key details around our performance in the pre-release we issued ahead of a refinancing earlier this month. Through September, we’ve reopened nearly 6,000 restaurants globally, since the peak of the crisis and as of the end of Q3 over 96% of our locations are open worldwide. As of September, substantially all of our restaurants are now open in North America, APAC and EMEA, and approximately 92% are open in Latin America.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.