Fast food chains across the country are constantly fighting to be the best – but where can you get your food the quickest? YouTuber Sam Reid put it to the test as he tested over 300 fast food restaurants to get the answer.
Sam Reid, who has over 243,000 subscribers on YouTube, is known for trying random foods and completing different food challenges.
In his latest video, he questioned QSR Magazine’s yearly report on the quickest fast food drive-thrus in the US, as he didn’t like the eateries that had been chosen, nor did he think the times seemed accurate.
So to really put the report to the test, he asked his viewers to help him perform a worldwide test where over 300 fast food locations were tested to see how quick their drive-thru service is.
He decided to test the top ten fast food chains in the USA: McDonalds, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Dairy Queen, Popeyes, and Sonic.
He argued that he didn’t include Starbucks or Dunkin’ as he didn’t consider them fast food places. And he also chose not to include Subway, as most locations don’t have a drive-thru.
The rules were simple, each order had to include at least one main, to make the times fair, but people were allowed to order more than one main. This was to make the results as fair as possible. They also had to go at three different assigned time slots – lunch, dinner, or late night.
Quickest fast food chain results
So, what was the result? In the end, Reid’s ranking of the fastest fast food chain looked vastly different compared to the report made by QSR Magazine.
Looking at the median waiting times for each food chain at over 300 locations, the fastest fast food chain was Burger King.
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Chick-Fil-A and Sonic were considered the slowest restaurants overall, as they were the only restaurants that didn’t manage to serve their food in under 2 minutes to any of the 300 orders. In contrast, all other restaurants had at least one order being served in under 2 minutes.
| Ranking | Fast food chain | Average waiting time (mins) |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Burger King | 4:24.19 |
| #2 | Wendy’s | 4:51.07 |
| #3 | Taco Bell | 4:58.50 |
| #4 | KFC | 5:50.07 |
| #5 | Arby’s | 6:10.43 |
| #6 | McDonald’s | 6:44.95 |
| #7 | Dairy Queen | 6:56.40 |
| #8 | Popeyes | 7:34.99 |
| #9 | Chick-Fil-A | 7:42.47 |
| #10 | Sonic | 8:30.58 |
In total, the average time between all 300 restaurants that were part of the challenge was 6 minutes and 22 seconds, and the median time was 5 minutes and 21 seconds.
The average wait time, meaning the time from getting in line to giving the restaurant your order, was 1 minute and 33 seconds, whereas the average service time, meaning the time it takes from ordering to getting your food, was 4 minutes and 48 seconds.
Different results compared to QSR
Reid’s results were very different from that of QSR, who named Taco Bell as the fastest drive-thru, followed by KFC and Arby’s. Meanwhile, Reid put these fast food chains as third, fourth, and fifth fastest overall, with Burger King and Wendy’s being significantly faster overall.
QSR also decided to include Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers but left out Popeyes, which they ranked seven ranks higher than Raising Cane’s in their list of most popular fast food chains, which Reid argued was weird.
QSR also had part of their testing done during breakfast hours, but since not all fast food chains tested were open for breakfast, this brought some average times down as most fast food places usually are less busy during this time.
If you can’t decide where to go for your next fast food meal, check out our guides on the best fast food burgers in the USA and where to find the best value fast food meal.
