How California's In-N-Out Burger Paved The Way For Modern Drive-Thrus

Americans love their drive-thrus, whether we're talking about a drive-thru restaurant, a drive-thru ATM, a drive-thru liquor store, a drive-thru wedding chapel, or even drive-thru voting. As a car-pilled Angeleno who also gets asked stupid questions by strangers every time I leave the house (I'm 6-foot-8, and no I don't play basketball), I think the drive-thru is one of the greatest innovations to come out of the U.S. Being able to get stuff done without ever leaving the comfort of my car is excellent. 

According to History.com, Red's Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Mo., is widely credited as the first drive-thru restaurant, which it opened in 1947. Red's Giant Hamburg sat on Route 66, which famously ends in sunny Southern California, where another huge drive-thru innovation was pioneered just one year later: the use of a two-way intercom. That milestone was first instituted in 1948 by Southern California's famous burger chain, In-N-Out Burger. By the early 1950s, drive-thru restaurants with their squawk boxes were so popular that another SoCal-originated fast food chain that also sells antenna toppers, Jack In The Box, opened as a drive-thru-only restaurant. Now, just about every fast-food restaurant you can think of has at least a few locations with a drive-thru.  

When World War II ended, and more Americans had the disposable income to buy cars, move to the newly constructed suburbs, and navigate the concept of a long commute, the drive-thru became even more popular. Moving the dining experience out of a restaurant's dining room and into an individual's car meant the restaurant's overhead was lower. There was no need for servers, plates, cups, or silverware. At the time, that meant restaurants could charge lower prices for the same food, which, combined with the convenience boom that created revolutionary products like the automatic dishwasher, furthered the allure of the quick-and-easy drive-thru.

There are some outliers on this timeline, though. The drive-thru bank, for example, actually arrived before the drive-thru restaurant in 1946, when The Exchange National Bank opened bulletproof drive-up teller windows in Chicago. Drive-thru liquor stores started opening in the mid-1950s, around the same time that drive-thru churches and even drive-thru wedding chapels started showing up. Drive-thru pharmacies seem to be the most recent addition to the drive-thru-everything craze, as they didn't show up until 1971 and didn't really become commonplace until the early 1990s when the chain Walgreens began opening them. 

So next time you pull up to the drive-thru and participate in the oh-so-American act of shouting about which 1,000-calorie meal you want or which blood pressure med you need refilled, know that you've got California's own In-N-Out Burger to thank for the convenience.