zxriptor

Let me explain exactly why In-N-Out refusing mobile ordering is the smartest fast food decision in a decade, because everyone's calling it backwards. Every major chain added mobile ordering to increase throughput. It worked. McDonald's, Starbucks, Chipotle all saw digital orders hit 30-40% of sales. Then something happened that nobody talks about: average visit frequency went up but brand loyalty went down. Mobile ordering turned food into a logistics transaction. You're not choosing Chipotle because you love Chipotle. You're choosing whichever app loads fastest while you're walking to your car. In-N-Out does $4.5 million per store. McDonald's does $2.7 million. In-N-Out does it with 15 menu items, zero franchises, no freezers, no microwaves, and now no mobile ordering. McDonald's needs 13,000+ locations to be McDonald's. In-N-Out needs 400. The line IS the product. That 20-minute wait with the smell of fresh-cut fries is doing more marketing work than any app notification ever could. Lynsi Snyder figured out something the entire QSR industry keeps forgetting: scarcity and inconvenience are features when your product is good enough. Chick-fil-A gets this too. Closed on Sundays. Everyone said it was leaving money on the table. They now do $7.5 million per store, more than any fast food chain in America, open 6 days a week. The companies winning in fast food right now are the ones saying no to things. No to franchising. No to 50-item menus. No to mobile ordering. The rest are optimizing themselves into commodities.

I'd be so defeated not knowing whether to shout, scream or cry..