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Here’ a useful nugget: National Drive-Thru Day is approaching

Celebrate with your favorite on July 24

A customer at a Taco Bell drive through window receives their food on March 31, 2020 in Huntington Station, New York. Taco Bell is offering a free taco today to customers using their drive through window as a 'thank you' to guests who are making a difference in the fight against coronavirus. (BRUCE BENNETT, 2020 Getty Images)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Being on year 23 in the news business, I’ll admit, I am all too familiar with drive-thrus. I feel like I can name all of them – kind of like Forrest Gump rattling off all the kinds of shrimp dishes there are.

There are drive-thrus, double drive-thrus, drive-thru convenience stores, bank drive-thrus, pharmacy drive-thrus.

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Whether we use it for laziness or convenience, this uniquely American invention is here to stay, and let’s be honest, we love it.

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Not to be confused with drive-in eateries which date back to 1921, the drive-thru was created in the 1940s, according to AAA. Several eateries claim to be the first, but the drive-thru in its current iteration started in 1948 at In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park, California.

The drive-thru started to become more mainstream in the 1970s when major fast-food restaurants began adding a drive-thru option. McDonald’s opened its first drive-thru in 1975.

AAA said that drive-thru windows now account for about 70% of the billions of dollars fast food restaurants bring in each year.

I’d hate to know how much I contributed to that.

You know how to celebrate this day. Do your thing, America.


Check out the Florida Foodie podcast. You can find every episode in the media player below:


About the Author
Jacob Langston headshot

Jacob joined ClickOrlando.com in 2022. He spent 19 years at the Orlando Sentinel, mostly as a photojournalist and video journalist, before joining Spectrum News 13 as a web editor and digital journalist in 2021.

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