It’s easy to imagine that drive-thrus have existed alongside cars since the beginning, but the truth is that dining culture had to evolve into drive-thru culture over the course of decades. Roughly 70 percent of sales at most fast-food spots now take place through the window, according to a 2018 study published by QSR magazine. And, while other states lay claim to the invention, we have California to thank for the innovation’s widespread adoption.
"Before World War II, the old nickel-hamburger chains . . . had offered drive-up window service as an adjunct to regular counter service at some of their units," Philip Langdon wrote in Orange Roofs, Golden Arches. "Not until 1951, however, when Robert O. Peterson started Jack in the Box in San Diego, did a sizable chain make drive-thru windows the keynote of its operation." (In fact, one of the chain’s original menu boards is part of a collection at the National Museum of American History as an artifact of postwar driving culture in Southern California.)
Fast-food restaurants were innovating throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but In-N-Out pushed the drive-thru genre further. As Ben Bower noted in a micro-history of the company for Gear Patrol, In-N-Out’s cofounder "Harry Snyder was the first to recognize the potential of a restaurant that allowed drivers to make orders over a two-way intercom system." That innovation still typifies the drive-thru experience today.
But it wasn’t until the 1970s that the drive-thru became a mainstream feature, especially as drive-in restaurants started to decline. "I thought, ‘Where is all this business going from the drive-in [restaurant] business?’" Robert Emerson quoted Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas as saying in The New Economics of Fast Food. "The drive-in used to be real popular, and there are more cars on the roads but there are less drive-ins." It was this revelation that inspired Thomas to add a service window to his original Wendy’s store—fittingly, a former automotive showroom—and every store the company opened going forward. By 1975, McDonald’s and Burger King had followed suit.
Shifts in how American society was growing and eating were behind this transition. In the 1970s, dual-income households were on their way to becoming the norm, and the US divorce rate reached its peak, making culinary convenience a priority for busy working families. Suburban sprawl gave rise to long commutes, and the average household was spending more on dining out than ever before—up to 40 percent of all food dollars were spent on meals eaten away from home in 1984, according to data from the National Restaurant Association that was shared with the New York Times.