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Drive-Ins and Drive-Thrus Trace Fast Food’s American Rise
Late-1940s innovations turned drive-thrus into a major fast-food format, pushing menus toward portable items and multi-lane ordering, historians said.
- Marking the United States' 250th anniversary, the "American Objects" series explores how early 20th-century drive-ins combined fast food and cars, creating the classic "Happy Days" scene.
- The real innovation dates to the late 1940s, though sources debate whether an In-N-Out Burger in California in 1948 or Red's Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri in 1947 pioneered the concept.
- Restaurants adapted menus to portable items like sandwiches and chicken strips, while Wienershnitzel built distinctive A-frame structures and Jack in the Box pioneered drive-thru-exclusive restaurants with no indoor seating.
- Modern drive-thrus evolved into coordinated multi-lane operations; at Chick-fil-As, employees use electronic tablets to streamline ordering, a practice that arrived decades after Europe's first drive-thru opened in 1985 in Dublin.
- Historians view the drive-in as expressing deep American passions: "speed, efficiency and, sometimes, laziness." The drive-thru remains woven into the cultural fabric of the United States.
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources19
Leaning Left8Leaning Right1Center10Last UpdatedBias Distribution53% Center
Bias Distribution
- 53% of the sources are Center
53% Center
L 42%
C 53%
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