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Are they not letting people inside? a couple around me still seem to be 'drive through only', which accounts for 'line of cars' I see, which... just seems like it's people sitting around wasting more gas idling. Maybe some McDonalds will convert to a 'drive-in' style, like sonic, with food runners...

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Where I live, there was a brief period in 2020 when they didn't let people inside McDonald's, but otherwise they have always allowed dine-in.

(However, I live in Singapore.)

Some fast-food places in the US went drive-through-only in 2020 and are still that way. I think if you're in the kind of rural or suburban place where almost everyone drives almost everywhere, then the drive-through does the majority of fast food business anyway, and many people who would have gone inside will switch to the drive-through rather than not buying your food, so the cost savings from not having to hire more staff to maintain the dining room might make up for the lost sales. Obviously in an urban area that gets a lot of foot traffic, this would not be the case.

Some of the places around me are 'dine-in sometimes', which is maddening, as I can't tell until I go to the door if it's locked or not. So... I've quite going to those places. I don't care to sit idling my car for 3-5 minutes in a long queue.

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