What you’re looking at is a policy failure on multiple levels:
- Car-dependency in general, both in terms of transportation planning (making a stroad) and zoning (allowing the business to have a drive-thru to begin with).
- Failing to validate the capacity of the site design before approving it (yes, I know this was opening day – but several drive-thrus near me overflow out onto the street every day, even after having been open for years, so this kind of failure is definitely a thing!).
- Failure to have the police show up to clear the traffic and ticket everyone blocking the road (possibly as well as the business itself).
There should be some kind of laws around drive thrus, their capacity, and blocking roads. Unfortunately since there aren’t any yet i doubt a cop could actually ticket anyone. Plus a cop is just as happy to wait in the line and block the road as well, because that has been normal and business as usual since drive thrus have existed.
What is really frustrating is try blocking those same lanes as pedestrians or cyclists waiting in a line and suddenly everyone will tell you how unsafe and rude you are.
That’s like 30 people in line. It takes half a block and a lane of the stroad to fit 30 people.
if only there was some other way to transport and have 30 people be in one place at a time
TIL the word “stroad”. Thanks. I just looked it up, and it’s so much the norm in almost every place I’ve lived that it was hard for me to even grasp the concept at first. Because that’s practically every road. (Although I must say I disagree with how they define street versus road because nobody actually uses those words as being especially different from one another in real life.)
FWIW I’ve always intuitively held the same distinction. Streets are walkable and have stuff on them, cars optional but at low speeds if they are there. Roads are not walkable and link up areas for car use.
It comes from how the Netherlands defines it. Since they use Dutch, English-speakers had to kind of scramble to find any word that would fit.
Raising Cane’s did this when they opened their store by me. They sent out mailers for free meals and stuff on opening day, the lines stretched around the block and they had police handling traffic. It’s marketing fluff to make a ruckus in a new market.
Surprise surprise once people had to pay, I’ve never seen lines like this again there.
FUCK.
that’s my hometown.
haven’t been there in years, but i used to walk there a lot. i typically just had to walk on the grass or in the ditch next to the road. then i had to plan my entire route around where i could cross the roads. very very few places to do that, and almost none that were safe.
got harassed by the cops once because i was walking at night with a flashlight in that town. walking is so uncommon there that it’ll get the police called on you.
also, more town than city.
same kind of crazy line formed there when they got chick-fil-a and portillo’s. it’s in Wisconsin, so they got chick-fil-a late and portillo’s early in their respective spreads across the country.
Ha sorry, but I’m not surprised you had such difficulty walking. I also grew up in the Midwest where if you’re walking people assume you must just be poor and can’t afford to drive. Weird weird culture
Mid ass chicken.
Thank you. I was wondering wtf Raising Cane’s is.
I wouldn’t even give it mid. I’ve had better frozen tenders.
It’s not even good and they don’t have fucking BBQ sauce
Disgusting asphalt desert dystopia
desert asphalt dystopia sounds like a late night soft heavy metal band that plays in Las Vegas every night.
So does canes have to pay the city to have that cop at drivethru or is the taxpayer going to pay for that?
Good question, I saw the opening of canes in another town that had cops directing traffic in the inlet, probably 3 or so cars working just to get people their (honestly incredibly mediocre) fried chicken.
A job that could have been done by anyone in a high vis vest and some traffic control training. But i guess canes probably argued the road is city property so it should be the city’s problem, even though it is canes business practices causing the problem.
Raising Cane’s is such a garbage operation. HQ staff had to help run some stores to meet opening dates. They couldn’t get enough staff to open on time because “no one wants to work anymore.”
To quote a guy overheard complaining about Cane’s in an airport: “bland white people food”
I’ve never even heard of Cane’s. Is it a Midwestern thing? Southern?
In my town there is usually a long drive thru line for Raising Canes, but it snakes around the parking lot rather than the stroad. The few times I go there I park, walk in, and walk out with my food before the person who would have been ahead of me at the drive thru has even ordered.
*a typical American town
I’m not familiar with Raising Cane’s, but the same thing happens at any Chick-fil-A near Seattle (we don’t have any in Seattle proper). It doesn’t even have to be a new opening. Meal time on a weekday? Chick-fil-A has a line around the block.
That one in Bellevue that they’ll wrap around the block and onto 405? And no one cares that they’re just stopped on the freeway blocking lanes for fucking chicken?
This should be illegal. Drive thrus need capacity like a dining room. How is it fair for public infrastructure to be blocked so a private company can sell chicken? It is also a massive safety hazard.
That’s the main one I’m thinking of, yes. What a terrible location for a place so busy.
I always do Ezells now when I crave chicken. Zero need to go to chick fil a in this town
I know this is considered blasphemy, but I don’t think they’re that great. I don’t really have a favorite chicken place.
gasp
I have heard of some problematic locations but for the most part Chik-fil-a is a well oiled machine, sounds like that store needs more training and/or staff.
There are times when joining a 12 car line at CFA is still faster than waiting for the 1 car in front of you at burger king, and there have been times my car hasn’t even been stationary until I’m at the window collecting my order!
I’ve never experienced that. Sure would be nice. They do make good chicken.
And a business built largely around car dependence.
Happened in ABQ as well
I would quit the first day as worker there seeing that line.
I count roughly 15 cars in line, which could be as few as 15 people. All that space taken up for such few people…
