The Fast Food Chain A 2022 Poll Declared Has The Quickest Drive-Thru

Everybody loves a home-cooked meal, but sometimes the thought of standing over a stovetop can sound about as appealing as eating a cold salad in an office kitchenette on Thanksgiving. Maybe it's hot out, and all you have in your fridge are tubs of yogurt and the trappings of a hearty winter soup. Maybe you're on the road and forgot to bring snacks. Maybe you're tired after a long day and are craving something greasy and salty, that won't take longer than a pop song to prepare. In these instances, the gleaming sign of your favorite fast-food joint can feel like a lighthouse in a storm, with your hunger as the perilous ship. 

If you're a busy person who frequents fast-food chains, you might find it useful to know which franchises are truly the fastest, and which should be renamed "could-be-faster food." QSR Magazine's Drive-Thru Report — an annual poll that measures things like speed and quality of service per the word of over 1,000 consumers — is out, and it has some answers.

The results of QSR's 2022 Drive-Thru Report are in, and they show Kentucky Fried Chicken as the speediest drive-thru in all the land. Using customer insight from 1,537 visits over the course of 30 days, the report shows that a visit to a KFC drive-thru takes an average of 303 seconds, which is a shorter wait time than pollsters experienced at Taco Bell, Dunkin', McDonald's, and other big chains. That said, the report also shows that speed alone isn't necessarily the overarching indicator of America's favorite fast-food restaurant.

According to the Drive-Thru Report, KFC's rival Chick-fil-A was found to have the busiest drive-thru in 2021. While you might not get in and out of a Chick-fil-A drive-thru as fast as KFC (the report clocked an average of 509 seconds per visit in 2022), customers give the chain points for efficiency and customer service. "Employees at the chain are allowed to roam the drive-thru lane and take orders directly at customers' cars during peak periods," says the report. Plus, as Food & Wine notes, Chick-fil-A would probably be the fastest if were less busy than KFC, whose 1.98 cars per visit are small compared to Chick-fil-A's 4.74 average. In both cases, though, one thing is clear: Americans never have to wait that long for fried chicken.