Celebrate National Drive Thru Day Every July 24
On National Drive Thru Day we celebrate impatience and the ability to get your fast food even faster.
Also money, dry cleaning, and medications, among other things.
According to some sources, the recognition that Americans can be lazy led to the drive thru, or at least its expansion. Whatever the truth, the convenience of being able to stay in your car to order and pick up food and other items not only caught on, but at this point seems to be here to stay.
Jack in the Box, the first major drive thru burger chain, created National Drive Thru Day. But it didn’t create the drive thru.
Drive Thru History & Trivia
Drive thrus seem to have evolved from the drive-ins, those restaurants where carhops brought the food out to customers in their cars (often on roller skates). Those had actually started many years earlier, in 1921 in Dallas, Texas.
It was during the post WWII era that drive thrus spread throughout the country. Americans had developed a love affair with the car at this same time. Drive thrus and similar services took advantage of this to grow quickly.
Although Jack in the Box was the first drive-thru burger chain, it wasn’t the first drive thru. That honor apparently goes to a bank. The City Center Bank in Syracuse, New York debuted this unique way of serving customers in 1928.
In fact, Jack in the Box wasn’t even the first restaurant to have a drive thru. Red’s Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri opened one in 1947. And in 1948 California’s In N Out Burger restaurants added drive thrus, too.
Even if it wasn’t the first, Jack in the Box is one of the most enduring. The first restaurant opened in 1951, five years before that place with the golden arches. And it’s still popular today, ranking as one of the top 5 drive-thru restaurants (at least as of 2012).
That’s quite the achievement, considering there are more than 224,000 fast food restaurants in the U.S., many with a drive thru.
Over the years, other businesses started offering services in drive thrus. Of course, banks still do, but there are many others:
- Pharmacies
- Coffee shops
- Post Offices
- Dry Cleaners
- Wedding chapels
- Liquor stores
In some places you can even go to a wake/visitation without leaving your car. The dead person’s body is displayed behind a window you can drive by.
We’ve even heard of libraries offering drive thru services, so you can drop off books or pick up books you’ve pre-selected without getting out of your car.
Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this unofficially impatient holiday.
How to Celebrate National Drive Thru Day
How else to celebrate but at the drive thru!
Get breakfast at the drive thru.
Then do some banking, pick up medications and get married, all at the drive thru.
Ok, maybe you’re not going to get married just to celebrate National Drive Thru Day. But you get the idea.
Of course, you’ll also need to pick up lunch and dinner from the drive thru, too.
Luckily, unless you live in a very remote area, there’s most likely enough different fast food places nearby that you can have each meal from a different one. Unless you like having all your meals from the same restaurant. Then go for it!
Get your late morning or mid-afternoon caffeine fix from the drive thru. And pick up a bottle of wine from the liquor store drive thru. … Although apparently there aren’t that many of those around. So you may have to get out of your car if you want a drink with dinner.
What drive thrus will you be hitting for this day?
[…] National Drive Thru Day: These days we’re using the drive thru more than ever, wherever they’re available. And curbside pick-up is kind of like a drive thru! So this day will probably be pretty simple to celebrate … just keep doing what you’ve been doing! But if there’s some place you’d normally go inside that has a drive thru available, use it at least for this one day. […]
[…] National Drive Thru Day: Visit a drive-thu! It doesn’t matter where: your favorite fast-food place, your pharmacy, the bank … if there’s a drive-thru where you’re going, use it. […]