Taco Bell tops new drive-thru speed rankings, and Chick-fil-A wins on satisfaction

Question

Taco Bel has been titled as the fastest drive through. While Chick-fil-A was labeled the slowest but with the most customer satisfaction.

Answer 1

This appears to be based on a drive thru study conducted by Intouch Insight and QSR magazine, which examined 13 fast-food brands across three categories: classic, chicken and beverage. ABC 6, reporting on the study, confirmed that "Taco Bell emerged as the fastest, with an average wait of four minutes and 16 seconds, while Chick-fil-A, despite being the slowest at seven minutes and six seconds, tied with Dutch Bros for highest satisfaction." CBS News also picked up the story.

Comments

Solid fact check! Is there anything you found that is contrary to this article?

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I really like how you expanded on the other person's fact check but I feel like you could have expanded on yours a little bit and used a better source for the fact check.

Answer 2

The study was done by Intouch, insight for the 25th annual drive-through study. Not only reported by Fox News, but also by Local 12. Looking at the study report:

https://go.intouchinsight.com/hubfs/website/intouch-insight/resources/reports/drive-thru/drive-thru-study-report-2025.pdf

They broke up the fast food places into three separate categories to best be able to rank them. and find which leads overall in each segment, which are: classic, chicken, and beverage. Looking at the study and both reports of it, Chick-fil-a is the overall slowest; however, it ties with Ducth Bros for overall satisfaction. Due to ducth bros not being mentioned in the claim, I think it's a little misleading. However, overall, true Tacobell was fastest at 4:16, and Chick-fil-A was slowest at 7:06.

Answer 3

This article is misleading / exaggerated for a few key reasons. The main data points were posted by Intouch and FoxNews, which correlate with one another and are true, allthough they were not posted by quote on quote credible sources. As stated, "The fastest overall was Taco Bell, with customers spending about four minutes in line", and, "While Chick-Fil-A was the slowest, it ranked highest in satisfaction, tying with Dutch Bros, a drive-thru coffee company with more than 1,000 locations across 19 states." So while Taco Bell won the fastest drive-thru time, the "win" for Chick-Fil-A is a bit misleading because Dutch Bros was not mentioned in the claim itself. They had also added more information regarding Taco Bell, Chick-Fil-A, Dutch Bros, and two other food chains, which do not significantly relate to the main claim of the article. In conclusion, this article is essentially misleading and exaggerated in a sense, though some parts are true. 

Answer 4

Taco Bell has been named the fastest drive-through among other drive-throughs. "Overall, the average total drive-thru time was five minutes and 35 seconds, slightly slower than 2024 but three seconds faster when excluding brands that were just added to the study this year: Popeyes, Dutch Bros, Starbucks, and Tim Hortons." Chick-fil-A ranked as the slowest, but it ranked highest in satisfaction.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/taco-bell-tops-new-drive-thru-speed-rankings-chick-fil-a-wins-satisfaction

Comments

It would help make your fact check stronger if you used different sources to support the claim instead of just the original article. It could be helpful to find who the study was done by along with the other sources, as Fox News are just reporting on it and weren't the ones that conducted the study.

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Try finding a different source other than the one used in the claim to back up your answer. Other reports could show different or similar answers that could change your response.

Answer 5

I found this information to be partially accurate. The 25th Annual Drive Thru Study was conducted by Intouch Insight and QSR, as reported by Fox News and USA Today. The study compares across 13 fast food brands including Burger King, McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, and Taco Bell. Taco Bell was the fastest with an average wait time of 4 minutes and 16 seconds. Chick-fil-A, despite being the slowest at 7 minutes and 6 seconds, tied with Dutch Bros in terms of satisfaction. I believe that the original article linked by Fox News should also mention the fact that Dutch Bros also won in terms of satisfaction because they fail to mention them in the title. WKRC Local 12 News also reported on the study.

Answer 6

After investigating the claim that Taco Bell has the fastest drive-thru while Chick-fil-A is the slowest but earns the highest customer satisfaction, I found that the claim is accurate based on available evidence but comes from an industry-sponsored report rather than an independent academic study. The original and primary source is the 25th Annual Drive-Thru Study conducted by Intouch Insight in partnership with QSR Magazine, which used around 165 mystery-shop visits per brand across 13 major fast-food chains, totaling more than 2,000 visits collected between June and July 2025. The study reported that Taco Bell had the fastest average total time at about four minutes and sixteen seconds, while Chick-fil-A was the slowest but achieved the highest satisfaction rating at 98%. The secondary sources I reviewed included a Fox News article summarizing the study and a Restaurant Dive article confirming the same findings while adding context that Chick-fil-A’s slower times are likely due to higher order volume and customer traffic, not inefficiency. These sources all linked directly to the same Intouch Insight data. In terms of potential bias, Intouch Insight is a company that sells customer experience analytics, meaning that publicizing such studies helps promote their business, and Fox News’s lifestyle coverage often focuses on consumer-interest stories rather than deep data analysis. Still, both reported the data accurately. The evidence supporting the claim comes directly from Intouch’s published results and the consistency across multiple outlets that cited the same figures. However, evidence that slightly undermines the claim includes the study’s limited sample size, its dependence on mystery-shopper observations rather than full company data, which means results may not reflect every location or time of day. Overall, the claim that Taco Bell is the fastest and Chick-fil-A is the slowest but most satisfying is credible within the scope of the study, but it should be understood as a reflection of a marketing-oriented industry report rather than a scientifically verified conclusion. 

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Comments

You make good comments about the study's limitations and potential bias because it's essentially an advertisement for Intouch Insight. I appreciate how you clarified that Chick-fil-A's slower periods may simply be due to their increased consumer rather than a decrease in productivity. I do wonder if the mystery-shopper method overlooks factors that could alter the results, such as busy periods or different locations. It leads me to believe that there are other factors besides speed that are important in drive-thrus.

Answer 7

This claim is generally true. An article from The Washington Post shows the same data in that Taco Bell is the fastest drive-thru, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/28/wait-time-drive-through-restaurants/. On average, it takes about 5.5 minutes for a car to use the drive-thru in 2025. The article states that Taco Bell has a speed of 4.3 minutes, and Chick-fil-a is nearly twice as long; "Taco Bell took the speed crown for the second straight year, Baja Blasting us through in just 4.3 minutes. Chick-fil-A customers waited almost twice as long — eight minutes in total.". However, Chick-fil-a naturally has longer lines and if you were to adjust for the number of cars in line, Chick-fil-a moves the fastest. A core reason that Chick-fil-a has a longer drive-thru time is due to the employees maximizing customer satisfaction, including order accuracy and politeness. This is a clear connection that faster drive-thru time most likely means less customer satisfaction. The reason I mention this is because the Fox article, https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/taco-bell-tops-new-drive-thru-speed-rankings-chick-fil-a-wins-satisfaction, ranks these drive-thru's in a strange manner. Chick-fil-a wins on satisfaction, but it is only briefly mentioned that Dutch Bro's had tied with Chick-fil-a, but in the beverage category. "While Chick-Fil-A was the slowest, it ranked highest in satisfaction, tying with Dutch Bros, a drive-thru coffee company with more than 1,000 locations across 19 states". Regardless, the claim is true that Taco Bell is the fastest drive-thru, while Chick-fil-a has the highest customer satisfaction, (tying with Dutch Bro's).