Drive-Throughs: Environmental & Architectural Monstrosities
Cookie-cutter corporate drive-throughs, with concrete traffic control structures, worsen Tucson's heat, pollution and traffic problems.
When I passed the first grouping of new-generation drive-throughs in Midtown Tucson — I was reminded of the predictions made by Senior Vice President Judi Butterworth, of Orion Investment Real Estate, in a 2019 Retail Outlook presentation.
Predating the pandemic by six months, Butterworth warned Legislators at a financial forecasting meeting1 that:
Mixed use “ground floor [retail] is a disaster.”
Retail clothing stores, strip malls, large regional malls and strong anchor stores were disappearing. Apparel, which had been 70 percent of retail store sales, was down to 40 percent in 2019.
Delivery of online purchases and app-based take-out meals was “huge.”
Single-use retail and restaurant buildings were a new trend.
In 2019, brick-and-mortar retail sales were depressed, and delivery was “huge” because online sales continued to grow thanks to aggressive marketing, free delivery, membership discounts, no sales tax (before the “Wayfair bill” was passed) and strategically placed warehouses with armies of underpaid drivers and warehouse workers.
With faltering anchor stores, like Sears, Macy’s and Penney’s, smaller stores couldn’t hold up the strip malls, according to Butterworth. Giant retailers like Walmart had 3100 stores and “access to 90 percent of the US.” (This was before Walmart went toe-to-toe with Amazon over online orders and delivery during the pandemic.) Empty storefronts were common, particularly in cities with fluctuating populations due to tourism and snowbirds. Butterworth used North Scottsdale as an example of a city where many people “live there only six months of the year” and businesses have to “make it” in those six months. (Due to the University of Arizona, snowbirds and other tourists, Tucson’s population also fluctuates during the year.)
Butterworth’s predictions regarding the popularity of delivery and the proliferation of single tenant fast-food structures with drive-throughs were spot-on. When Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, Blake’s Lotaburger and Los Betos popped up on Speedway in Midtown, it was the beginning of a fast-food restaurant architectural trend that is rapidly changing the streetscapes of Tucson, and not in a good way. (See maps below.) Corporate drive-throughs, with tiny buildings, few employees and massive concrete infrastructures for long lines of waiting cars, are popping up like pimples across the face of Tucson.
These trends dovetail with the failing malls. Delivery and online sales have been chipping away at in-person stores and restaurants for years. Stand-alone coffee and fast-food establishments — particularly ones that take online orders — cater to our short-attention-span, pick-up-and-delivery, no-contact culture. There was an unlevel playing field before COVID. The pandemic only exacerbated these conditions for retail stores and restaurants and expanded the online sales and delivery markets beyond what anyone could have imagined.
This is sad. We’re not only hurting the environment with monster trucks idling in a coffee line and scaring the streetscape with architectural garbage, we are losing the community of having a sit-down meal with friends, even if it’s under a ramada in the parking lot, like the former Los Betos on Grant Rd.
Drive-Throughs Have Been Around for Decades. Why Are These Different?
Car-based fast food was a novelty when I was a kid. Driving to the McDonald’s on the Lake Road to buy burgers, fries, and sodas and to watch the sun set over Lake Erie was a family outing.
Those were the Norman Rockwell days of fast food. It’s not like that anymore.
I first became acquainted with Dutch Bros when I was an Arizona House member and got stuck in a Dutch Bros queue line that was blocking morning rush hour traffic on a main arterial in Downtown Phoenix. Dutch Bros is one of several corporations dotting our town with dorky little buildings surrounded by concrete and promoting sugary, caffeinated drinks.
Today’s tiny fast-food and fancy coffee chain restaurants have little or no seating, shade or landscaping. Some are surrounded by concrete mazes of pathways and curbs that guide long lines of waiting vehicles passed windows to place and pick-up their orders.
When you think about it, this new architectural/business model maximizes profit on multiple levels: tiny buildings, minimal staff, limited menus, electronic orders, no telephones2, no hassles with strip mall neighbors or landlords, and no landscaping, tables or public restrooms to maintain. The next step will be card-only sales and a robotic arm serving you.
Are We Environmental Posers? Doesn’t Anyone Remember the Energy Crisis?
During the Energy Crisis of the 1970s, thanks to price and market manipulation by OPEC, there were fuel shortages, high gas prices and long lines of people waiting to buy gas for the 10-mile-per-gallon gas guzzlers that dominated the roads.
Our long-term over-consumption hit us in the pocketbooks in a big way and changed lifestyles for many of us. To help Americans cut back, we were taught practices to save fuel in our homes and our cars. People turned down their thermostats and traded in the big cars for much smaller, fuel-efficient, often non-American cars, since American car makers only made big cars. I sold my 1965 Pontiac Catalina and bought a 1970s Datsun B110 that got ~45 mph but handled like a roller skate in the snow because it was so light and minimalist.
I watched President Jimmy Carter’s Report to the Nation on Energy (AKA the “sweater speech,” excerpted above) in which emphasized a national, comprehensive energy plan and conservation at all levels. He called on us to work together to confront the Energy Crisis. He encouraged us to “live thriftally” — modeled by his sweater — and turn our heaters to down to 55 degrees at night and 65 degrees during the day. (Do you have any idea how cold the floor is in the middle of the night when it’s below freezing outside and 55 degrees inside? Burrr.) Big comforters and layered clothing became popular. Women wore boots and legwarmers to work for warmth, not just style. Down vests were acceptable attire just about anywhere.
“All of us must learn to waste less energy … The amount of energy that is being wasted, which could be saved, is greater than the total energy we importing from foreign countries.” — President Jimmy Carter, February 2, 1977.
Besides telling us to avoid “jack rabbit” starts and single-stop errands to save gas, one of the big messages was not to wait in a line with your motor running. The rule of thumb was: if there were three or more cars in a take-out window line, park your car and order inside because that would use less gas and probably take less time. We were reminded that running our engines while the car wasn’t moving not only wasted gas, it was bad for the environment. Have we forgotten all of this?
I hope there aren’t any self-identified environmentalists waiting in those long lines with their engines running, or they’re going to lose their “woke” cards. [Sarcasm font.] How many cars in the concrete drive-through queues are Door Dash or Grub Hub drivers? I don’t know who I feel more sorry for — the able person ordering coffee online and having it delivered, or the delivery person, who is putting stress on their own car’s engine, while waiting in line for someone else’s latte in a single-use plastic or styrofoam cup. (OMG, people, it’s not that hard to make coffee.) Don’t get me wrong. Drive-throughs, online ordering and deliveries have their place, particularly if your mobility is limited or if you are a caregiver. For example, if you have two little cherubs dozing in car seats — or in their beds — the last thing a parent wants to do is wake them up and take them into a restaurant. Sliding quietly through the drive-through — or ordering online — and eating the food at home provides for a calmer meal. I speak from experience on this one!
President Ronald Reagan didn’t solve the Energy Crisis when he took the solar panels off the White House, he just gave us permission to ignore it and celebrate consumerism.
What have we become? Are we all talk when it comes to environmentalism? Look at the lifestyle choices these corporate chains represent and the related environmental and social impact: increased fuel consumption, air pollution, single-use packaging, concrete, heat, consumerism, worker exploitation.
The old drive-through fast-food model — like the Midtown Eegee’s on Speedway and many chains like McDonald’s, Burger King and Jack-in-the-Box — includes modest indoor seating and large parking lots with short take-out window lines. Drive-throughs with seating inside or outside give consumers choices. Drive-throughs and delivery have their place. When you’re traveling with (or living with) small children, pets or people with mobility challenges or health problems, placing a delivery order or slipping through a speedy drive-though are handy.
When my children were young, fast-food chains began adding playgrounds indoors. Ours was not a fast-food family, but we took a lot of road trips. For families traveling with small children, the indoor and outdoor seating and the play areas were a welcome amenities.
Post-pandemic, these establishments are returning to their drive-through, take-out or eat-in-your-car roots. What happened to consumer choice and customer service?
There are so many things wrong with this architectural, business and labor model:
The shadeless, concrete infrastructures for parking lot traffic control contribute to our city’s heat island effect.
The architectural design — with little or no indoor or outdoor seating, shade, landscaping or parking — encourages customers to sit in their vehicles and wait in long lines with the motors and air conditioning running.
Drivers are wasting fuel and increasing pollution and heat by waiting in long lines. Often, when you are in the queue, you’re stuck, even if you’d like to bail. The new model is a long, controlled vehicle queue and only a few parking spaces.
These businesses employ a minimum of employees to make the final transaction.
It’s unfair and unhealthy for workers to be taking orders outdoors from vehicles in the queue lane, in the sun with no protection. Can you imagine how hot and unsafe that job was this summer?
Drive-Throughs Have Their Place, But the Tucson Market Is Saturated
Since Butterworth’s talk in mid-2019, many new drive-throughs have been constructed in the Tucson metro area. The Google Maps I created on Sept. 22, 2023 (below) shows 54 new chain fast-food or coffee drive-throughs: 20 Starbucks, 14 Dutch Bros, nine Dunkin,’ six Salad and Go and five Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers. Although incomplete, the volume is shocking. Forty-three new fancy coffee drive-throughs is not sustainable. Remember, Tucson has all of the traditional chain and local coffee shops, also.
Who is drinking all of this coffee? By my count, there are 43 new drive-through coffee places in Tucson. Is this why we have so many speeding red-light-runners? Should TPD check caffeine levels?
Why are these environmentally backward architectural designs even approved in Arizona cities? The tiny but tall buildings, covered with eye-catching signs, are the “single-use plastic” of architecture. What are we going to do with all of these tacky buildings when they go out of business? The designs are so specific to the product and the corporate template in the construction and the traffic control infrastructure that these properties will have limited resale value. Also, I have not visited all 54 of these establishments, but from what I have seen in the Tucson core, shade trees and ramadas are pretty much nonexistent. The process is focused on the sale and nothing else.
What Can Be Done?
Obviously, Tucson’s going to lose its “City of Gastronomy” designation if we allow the streets to be littered with fast-food joints.
All joking aside, Maricopa County and some of the cities in Maricopa County have been looking at regulations to curb the proliferation of drive-throughs. Residents are pushing back against the drive-throughs and calling for regulations, while business owners are calling for continued deregulation in the name of keeping Maricopa County “business friendly.”
Major corporations — like Starbucks — often have environmental goals to mitigate climate change or reduce pollution. These goals should look beyond single use plastic and paper straws and consider single-use architecture and everyday pollution created by the business model that emphasizes profit and sales over everything else. Supply chain energy consumption analyses should consider “the last mile” of the supply chain — the hapless customer or Door Dash driver running their engine for 30 minutes to buy one cup of coffee.
This isn’t a good trend in many ways. We can fight back against corporate greed and blight with our purchasing choices. Consumers have power. Buy a French press, good coffee and chocolate sauce and make fancy coffee for friends and family at home.
Drive-Through Maps
20 Starbucks Drive-Throughs (including one under construction near Coffee Times)
14 Dutch Bros Drive-Throughs (including one across the street from Coffee Times)
9 Dunkin’ Drive-Throughs (including the one right next door to Coffee Times)
6 Salad and Go Drive-Throughs (including locations near two Beyond Bread and one Chopped restaurant)
5 Raising Canes Chicken Fingers (including one near the Trident Grill)
As a Legislator, I was a copious note taker. I have several journals with notes from my six years in the House and my three political campaigns ( 2016, 2018 and 2020).
The Dutch Bros website says you can’t call them on the phone because they’re rather see you in person. If they had a phone, they’d have to pay someone to answer it!