FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- The Cumberland Farms convenience store chain is testing the first drive-thru of its kind for New England at its Kingston, Mass., store with plans to add a few more by summer, according to a report by The Boston Herald.
All of the store's 3,000-plus products are available through the drive-thru, said the report. It operates in the same manner as those at a Burger King or McDonald's: Customers drive up to a speaker with a menu, place their orders and continue to the pickup window.
"We're not just in the convenience store business, we're [image-nocss] in the business of providing for the on-the-go customer," Ari Haseotes, president of the Framingham, Mass. company, told the newspaper. "The drive-thru was really just raising the bar yet another level."
To break in customers, Cumberland Farms' drive-thru menu lists fresh food and beverages, and alerts customers that they also can order any other item in the store.
"If you can put a newspaper in their hands, you've already outdone the [quick-serve restaurant] competition," Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), told the paper.
While c-stores account for about 80% of the gasoline sold in this country, they make their money inside the stores, said Lenard. And the challenge with drive-thrus is the potential for slowing down a store's transaction time, he added.
"Transaction time is, absolutely, what convenience stores have over any other channel," Lenard said.
Whether Cumberland Farms rolls out more drive-thrus at its 580 stores in 11 states will depend on customer acceptance and whether the pilot locations can still serve customers in a matter of a few minutes, the report said.
"We've added some manpower in the store to be able to deliver the same speed of service that customers are accustomed to inside the store," Haseotes said.
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