Mobile-order pickup lanes: how chains run them and how to add one

A mobile-order pickup lane is a drive-thru lane for guests who ordered and paid in an app or online. They skip the speaker and drive to a window to collect the bag. Chipotle, Chick-fil-A and Taco Bell run them, and McDonald's has tested one. The hard parts are timing the food so it is ready when the car arrives, and handing each bag to the right car.

Our double drive-thru guide covers two lanes where both take orders at a speaker. This page covers a lane that takes no orders at all: what chains have said about theirs, how the order gets to the kitchen and the window, layout choices for a single store, and what to count once it opens.

What have chains said about mobile pickup lanes?

Chain	Date	What the company said
Chipotle	November 2022	Opened its 500th restaurant with a Chipotlane, which it calls its digital order drive-thru pick-up lane; the format started in the U.S. in early 2018 (Chipotle release)
Chipotle	February and July 2026	Opened 334 company-owned restaurants in 2025, 257 with a Chipotlane; opened 100 in the second quarter of 2026, 80 with one; expects around 80% of new company-owned restaurants in 2026 to have one (full-year 2025 results, second-quarter 2026 results)
Chick-fil-A	September 2023	Mobile Thru, a drive-thru lane only for mobile orders, rolling out to more than 300 restaurants after a two-year test; guests pick Mobile Thru in the app, scan a QR code in the lane, then pull around to a team member (Chick-fil-A press room)
Taco Bell	June 2022	Taco Bell Defy in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota: four lanes, one for traditional drive-thru and the others for app pre-orders and delivery drivers, with QR check-in screens and a lift that brings food down from a second-floor kitchen (Taco Bell newsroom)
McDonald's	December 2022	A test restaurant outside Fort Worth, Texas, with an Order Ahead Lane where app orders arrive on a conveyor; the team starts the order when the customer is near (McDonald's)
Wendy's	August 2023	Global Next Gen design, introduced in 2022: pass-through shelving for mobile and delivery orders, a walk-up window with parking for delivery drivers, and a pull-ahead spot at the pickup window (Wendy's blog)

By our arithmetic, 257 of 334 is about 77% of Chipotle's 2025 company openings, and 80 of 100 is 80% for the second quarter of 2026. Chipotle says its Chipotlanes help raise new restaurant sales, margins and returns. That is the company's own claim, and the release gives no figures for it. Chick-fil-A says 85% of Mobile Thru users in its test said they were likely to use it again and 90% said it went smoothly; it did not publish a timing figure.

How does a mobile order reach the kitchen and the window?

The order comes in through your online ordering or app, lands in the POS, and fires to the kitchen at a moment you choose. The choice of moment decides whether food waits for the car or the car waits for the food.

When the ticket fires	How your system does it	What can go wrong
As soon as the order is placed	Square lets you print pickup tickets when the order is placed	Food sits if the guest is 20 minutes away
At a prep time before the chosen pickup time	Square can print tickets by pickup time using your prep-time setting; Toast fires scheduled orders when their prep-time clock starts, through one auto-firing device	A guest who arrives early waits in the lane
When the guest is near or checks in	McDonald's test lane starts the order when the customer is near; Chick-fil-A and Taco Bell Defy have guests scan a QR code on arrival	Needs app location or a check-in step, and a kitchen fast enough to finish while the car waits

Toast's guide to order auto-firing says to turn it on for one device only, because more than one can print the same order twice, and to use a device on a wired connection that stays on during open hours. Square's pickup settings include a prep time in minutes, a choice of print timing, and arrival alerts that let a curbside guest tap a link when they arrive.

At the window, the crew needs to see which cars are mobile orders. HME's ZOOM Nitro timer page says its dashboard can show up to 16 spaces, including mobile pickup, marks mobile orders with a blue outline, and can link to geofence technology for a bypass lane. HME says POS and geofence links vary by brand, so ask what works with your POS.

Which lane layout fits your site?

These are our examples for a single store. Measure your lot and check local rules on stacking space before you paint anything.

Layout	How it works	What it needs	Start here if
Own lane, own window	Mobile cars stay out of the ordering line from entry to window	Room for a second lane and a second window, and a person to staff it at peak	You are building new or mobile orders are a large share at peak
Bypass lane that merges before the window	Mobile cars skip the speaker and rejoin at the pickup window	Clear signs, a merge the crew can see, and a way to spot mobile cars at the window	You have width for a short second lane but one window
Shared lane with a "mobile pickup" script	The guest gives a name at the speaker and pulls ahead	A speaker script and a bag shelf by the window	Mobile orders are a small share and you want to test demand first
Marked parking spots and a shelf or runner	The guest parks and collects inside, or a runner brings the bag	Two or three spots near the door, and arrival texts or a call-in number	Your lane has no room to spare

How do you hand the right bag to the right car?

• Put the name and order number on the bag label, in print large enough to read from the window.
• Ask for the name at the window before handing anything over. If you use a QR or check-in code, check that the bag shows the same number.
• Show mobile orders on the timer or kitchen screen in a different way from speaker orders. Square's drive-thru fulfillment, for example, prints the car's color and type at the top of the kitchen ticket for orders taken at the lane (Square drive-thru setup).
• Stage bags by pickup time on a shelf the window person can reach without turning around.

What should you measure once the lane opens?

Count a baseline week before the lane opens, then the same weekday hours four weeks later. Our drive-thru timer guide shows how to time cars by hand if you have no timer.

1. Mobile share: mobile pickup orders as a share of all drive-thru orders, by hour.
2. Wait for mobile cars: seconds from entering the lane to bag in hand.
3. Bag age: minutes each bag sits before its car arrives. Long waits hurt fries and hot food.
4. Wrong-lane cars: speaker-order guests who drive into the pickup lane, and mobile guests who queue at the speaker.
5. Main lane time: total time for speaker-order cars, to check the new lane is not slowing them at the merge.
6. Handoff errors: wrong bags and missing items for mobile orders, logged at the window or from complaints.

If the main lane gets slower, look at the merge and at who staffs the window first. Our guide to speeding up a drive-thru sorts fixes by bottleneck.

Where do phone orders fit?

Phone orders for pickup raise the same timing question. If you take them through Maple's Pro plan, which writes phone orders into supported POS systems, decide whether phone guests may use the pickup lane, and test how those tickets fire and show at the window. For the lane itself, Maple's drive-thru unit takes speaker orders and is in early access with a small number of restaurants.

Published by Maple, which sells AI phone ordering and an early-access drive-thru ordering unit. This AI-assisted guide combines chain press releases, results announcements and blog posts, Toast, Square and HME help and product pages with original layout examples and a measurement list. It does not report a test of any chain's lane or promise a speed or sales result.