Where Are the Healthy Drive-Thrus?

Published on Wednesday, January 26, 2011, by Joyce Slaton / Edit Post

Fast food tastes disgusting. It's made from Z-grade ingredients and doled out by people who are paid slave wages by companies whose very existence poses a threat to the planet. Each meal we eat at BK or McDonald's brings us one step closer to a heart attack and produces a pile of garbage that will be shoveled into a hole in the earth.

So why do we eat it? Because in our busy, busy lives, rushing from point A to point B, we don't have time to cook, we don't have time to get takeout from a restaurant, we don't even have time to turn off the car and run into a convenience store. Sometimes it's drive-thru or nothing.

But why do drive-thrus unilaterally peddle such God-awful food? Pink-slime burgers, mystery chicken; there's nothing mysterious about making a burger and fries out of real, healthy ingredients. Where are the healthy drive-thrus?

"I can only think of four or five in the whole country," marvels Eric Brent, who runs the mammoth online vegetarian restaurants listings site HappyCow. "That's not a lot. Funny, isn't it?"

Yeah, it is. And so we wondered, why?

Maybe Healthy People Don't Eat in the Car?
Healthier fast food is a burgeoning category in the restaurant biz, with chains like Chipotle (buyers of antibiotic- and hormone-free meat) leading the way for smaller minichains like EVOS in the southeast and Better Burger in New York City, which serve sustainable/organic meat.

Evolution Fast Food

And of the healthy fast-food restaurants that do have drive-thrus, like the Pacific Northwest's Burgerville, and Nature's Express—which has two locations ready to serve you cheddar lentil burgers, fries, and natural soda through your car window—business is good. Mitch Wallis of Evolution Fast Food in San Diego, and Dr. Carl Myers of Nature's Express, affirm that vast chunks of their business come from their drive-thrus. It's a solid 40 percent for Evolution, and almost half for Nature's Express.

That's a lot of healthy people eating in their cars, huh? So if the market is there, where's the chain to serve it? Could it be that something else is going on?

Maybe Healthy Foods Are Slow Foods?
It can take upward of an hour to turn "things in the refrigerator" into "things on a plate," so maybe healthy restaurants are just too slow for drive-thrus?

This is indeed an issue, says Orean C. Thomas, the founder of Orean's the Health Express, which has been serving vegetarian fast food to the hungry people of Pasadena, California, since 1979. Though the mechanics of preparing a burger are largely the same whether you're using a veggie or an industrial beef patty, many whole-food dishes are indeed slow to prepare. Thus, Orean's limits the drive-thru menu to things that can be served superquickly.

Orean's the Health Express

"If you have a sit-down place and someone hustles your food out to you in five minutes, you feel like it's fast, but five minutes is an eternity when you're waiting in a car," says Thomas. "No pizzas on the drive-thru. Only stuff that's fast. Nothing that has to go under a heat lamp."

With toe-tapping customers in mind, healthier fast-food joints with drive-thrus are cooking as quickly as they can. At Evolution, management aims for its food to be ready four minutes or less after ordering; Nature's Express tries for three and a half to four minutes. It's not quite as fast as fast food. But it's not too slow for someone sitting in a car, either.

There's No NIMBY Like a Fast-Food NIMBY
Plenty of people are out there eating fast food. But nobody wants a new fast-food restaurant with a drive-thru opening up in their neighborhood, because of twin demons that Ruth Stroup, who specializes in restaurant insurance at Farmers Insurance Group in Oakland, California, sums up in three words: "traffic and trash." This is amply illustrated by the tale of the Kwik Way on Lake Park Avenue in Oakland, California. Long ago, the Kwik Way was a neon-bedecked drive-in. Later, Kwik Way was a run-down hamburger shack with a drive-thru, housed in a vintage building in Oakland's Lake Merritt neighborhood.

And then the Kwik Way closed. And it's been empty ever since. McDonald's tried moving in. Fatburger tried moving in. Other restaurants tried. Heck, Myers even looked into putting a Nature's Express in the spot. Each one was shot down. And now, in a jewel of a bustling neighborhood that holds a retro movie palace and sparkling, twinkling Lake Merritt, the Kwik Way has sat silent and dead, with plastic bags blowing through the parking lot, for years.

"Oh, no zoning board's going to let a new fast-food drive-thru open up," says Stroup. "The feeling is that there are too many already! The only companies that could promise enough to the surrounding communities to make it worth their while are the McDonald's of the world. Not your mom-and-pops."

Nature's Express in Yuma, Arizona

So if a restaurant wants a drive-thru, by golly, they have to find one that's shuttered. Orean's the Health Express is in an old Pup 'n' Taco. Nature's Express's Yuma, Arizona, drive-thru? It used to be a Chinese buffet.

The difficulty in finding locations is the one thing mentioned by every restaurateur we spoke to. There's no critical mass yet, no one big chain that can swing a 400-pound gorilla stick and sit just about anywhere he wants to.

Maybe that day is coming. Evolution's Wallis was one of the most enthusiastic about future plans: "We are currently planning to expand and open additional units and they will all be drive-thru units unless they are located inside of a shopping mall or airport or somewhere where there are no cars at all," he writes in an email. "Also, we are designing a 'pollution-free' drive-thru which will be encased by plants that will absorb the emissions coming from the vehicles."

Wallis and his cohorts are at work securing the capital to make those plans a reality; if that comes through, he doesn't anticipate much push-back from the neighbors. "Yes, there is resistance to new drive-thrus but not as much if you use 'green' technology," he writes.

Others think the idea of healthy drive-thru chains isn't ready for the masses: "All that traffic on the road, all those mainstream Americans who are eating their Big Macs, they don't want to eat at Veggie Grill," reflects T. K. Pillan, co-founder and co-CEO of the chain of five vegetarian restaurants located in (you'll never guess!) California. "Hopefully in 10 or 15 years they will be. But not yet."

McDonald's image source: Flickr member jcorrius under Creative Commons

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POST A COMMENT |24 Comments

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  • due to a recent transplant surgery, I have had to rethink how I eat to stay healthy. fast food was a great part of my diet (mcd's at least three times a week). just laying off for a two months because i had to has become a lifelong commitment for many reasons, i feel better, look better, save more money. it's all a plus. if you can't give it up completely give it up partially.

  • As a suburban parent of a toddler, I would LOVE a healthy fast-food drive-through, because there are many, many times in the life of a parent that drive-throughs are ideal - like when she's sleeping in the car and I'm hungry, or when she just woke up and didn't get to eat before we got in the car, or when we're shuttling through play-dates and errands and I just want to get something to eat...+READ

    As a suburban parent of a toddler, I would LOVE a healthy fast-food drive-through, because there are many, many times in the life of a parent that drive-throughs are ideal - like when she's sleeping in the car and I'm hungry, or when she just woke up and didn't get to eat before we got in the car, or when we're shuttling through play-dates and errands and I just want to get something to eat without having to get her out of and then into the car seat for the fiftieth time that day. Never mind all the times in my non-parenting life that drive-through has been the ideal way to get food. And yet, I will not, not, not eat Mickey D's, because, all ethical questions aside, blech. So please, bring some healthy drive-through to the Chicago northwest burbs, food companies!-COLLAPSE

  • "All that traffic on the road, all those mainstream Americans who are eating their Big Macs, they don't want to eat at Veggie Grill,"

    I disagree with this. If the option were there, I think a lot of people who are getting the Big Macs would go for healthy instead. People get the Big Mac because it is there - and you are kidding yourself if you think the salad at McD is healthy...go buy some...+READ

    "All that traffic on the road, all those mainstream Americans who are eating their Big Macs, they don't want to eat at Veggie Grill,"

    I disagree with this. If the option were there, I think a lot of people who are getting the Big Macs would go for healthy instead. People get the Big Mac because it is there - and you are kidding yourself if you think the salad at McD is healthy...go buy some veggies and make your own, it's much tastier anyway.-COLLAPSE

  • There's also (completely unnecessary) ADDED sugar in their new smoothies... See their ingredients for yourself: http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritionexchange/ingredientslist.pdf

  • All the chicken at McDonalds is marinated in liquid MARGARINE (aka. hydrogenated oil!/UNnatural trans fat). and there's dry milk in their ice cream, which is REALLY bad for your sinuses...

  • CloggieGirl, the healthy options at McD's are their new oatmeal (plain) with fruit, their fruit & walnut salad, their side of salad with low-fat Italian dressing (or 1/4 packet of any other dressing!), and to some degree, their Egg McMuffin, although that has a lot of carbs. The grilled chicken salad isn't too bad, but the chicken must be marinated in salt as a preservative, so that is not good....+READ

    CloggieGirl, the healthy options at McD's are their new oatmeal (plain) with fruit, their fruit & walnut salad, their side of salad with low-fat Italian dressing (or 1/4 packet of any other dressing!), and to some degree, their Egg McMuffin, although that has a lot of carbs. The grilled chicken salad isn't too bad, but the chicken must be marinated in salt as a preservative, so that is not good. Besides that - not much else, except if you are not opposed to coffee, then their regular coffee (not the coffee "drinks" like "frappe's" and the like) would be fine, too.-COLLAPSE

  • I agree with im_nomad that the writer of the article is making generalizations. Granted, a lot of fast food is bad for you - but a) I cut out fries about 3 years ago; and b) I try to go to In & Out Burger and get the double meat, or double meat w/ single cheese, protein style - no bun. It is really not that bad at all! Oh, and I order extra tomato - which they don't charge extra for! At McD's, I...+READ

    I agree with im_nomad that the writer of the article is making generalizations. Granted, a lot of fast food is bad for you - but a) I cut out fries about 3 years ago; and b) I try to go to In & Out Burger and get the double meat, or double meat w/ single cheese, protein style - no bun. It is really not that bad at all! Oh, and I order extra tomato - which they don't charge extra for! At McD's, I also get their Eg McMuffin sometimes, which is not bad at all. As for burgers - well, it's "hit or miss" - I have gotten tummy aches from some fast food burgers, but never from In & Out. You just have to be careful WHAT you buy. The best place other than In & Out, in my view, is El Pollo Loco! I get chicken only, and some corn tortillas, and have their chicken with some pico de gallo in a tortilla. That is NOT bad - certainly NOT disgusting or awful. So - yes - it's more a matter of knowing what is OK, and what is NOT OK to order at a drive-through!!-COLLAPSE

  • I think the oatmeal that is new @ McDonald's is OK - I got it plain, and with just fresh little apple chunks and decent raisins in it, I see nothing wrong with it! Plus I get their coffee and their oatmeal cookies - I give the latter to my husband, to satisfy his sweet tooth!

  • @foreverflavor - You're confusing antibodies with antibiotics. They're not (even remotely) the same thing.

    Really.

    Antibodies are gamma globulin proteins produced by the immune systems of vertebrate organisms that have highly-specific structural bits designed to bind to specific antigens, thus marking them for attack by other components of the immune system, or sometimes inactivating them...+READ

    @foreverflavor - You're confusing antibodies with antibiotics. They're not (even remotely) the same thing.

    Really.

    Antibodies are gamma globulin proteins produced by the immune systems of vertebrate organisms that have highly-specific structural bits designed to bind to specific antigens, thus marking them for attack by other components of the immune system, or sometimes inactivating them directly.

    Antibiotics are a wide variety of chemicals produced by microorganisms (and assorted synthetic and semi-synthetic chemicals based on those) that inhibit the proliferation of other microorganisms, either by slowing their growth or killing them. (The most common mechanism of action is interference with some detail of protein synthesis specific to the target organism - but there are other mechanisms, as well.)

    Antibodies are *not* "natural antibiotics", and the presence of natural antibodies does not in any way mitigate or excuse the use (or overuse) of antibiotics.

    Antibiotics and antibodies aren't really related at all, aside from the fact that both of them help prevent infections. The routine (over)use of antibiotics can even cause vulnerability by killing infectious organisms before the immune system has a chance to develop antibodies keyed to those organisms.-COLLAPSE

  • The author of this article appears to be making an awful lot of generalizations /assumptions about why people eat fast food, despite the fact that it is "disgusting"... Perhaps not everyone finds it disgusting, for starters. Obviously someone must like it, or these places would have gone under years ago.

  • What about the smoothie places? I miss my old neighborhood's Planet Smoothie with a drive-thru window. It was near my pediatrician's office so great for a new mom to grab a healthy meal without lugging child out of the car (the real reason fast food windows are used by health-conscious moms!). My new neighborhood has a great healthy smoothie place, but I have to get the kid out of the car to...+READ

    What about the smoothie places? I miss my old neighborhood's Planet Smoothie with a drive-thru window. It was near my pediatrician's office so great for a new mom to grab a healthy meal without lugging child out of the car (the real reason fast food windows are used by health-conscious moms!). My new neighborhood has a great healthy smoothie place, but I have to get the kid out of the car to patronize it. Same thing with Chipotle and other Mom-and-Pop places.-COLLAPSE

  • Seems the author of this piece is neglecting to acknowledge that mass producing "healthy" food is expensive. If you doubt that, go into your local Whole foods grocery store and take a look around and compare prices.

    If there was enough of a demand, there would be innovative people and companies falling over each other for the business. It's simply not in big demand throughout the country. The...+READ

    Seems the author of this piece is neglecting to acknowledge that mass producing "healthy" food is expensive. If you doubt that, go into your local Whole foods grocery store and take a look around and compare prices.

    If there was enough of a demand, there would be innovative people and companies falling over each other for the business. It's simply not in big demand throughout the country. The places named in the piece may be able to branch out in certain areas, like Northern California, but the rest of us are not clamoring for veggie-soy-lentil-tempeh crap. And Orean in Pasadena may have been around for a while, but their food tastes like crap. Shocked they can keep that one store open as it is. If you look around at it's neighborhood, it's surrounded by other fast food joints that are wildly popular, like Wolfe's Burgers and The Hat pastrami.

    And please, can we keep nanny state & food police pieces to a minimum? I love a good portobello burger, or salad, but I'm sick of hearing how "healthy" vegetarians and vegans are, while most of them look either sickly or have packed on more pounds than me, thanks to all the processed crap that they are eating.-COLLAPSE

  • Perhaps the question is not about healthy drive-thru's, but drive thru's with a higher quality of food. If I look at McDonalds, the biggest thing that would entail would be to increase the quality of their beef... oh, wait... they did that, its called an angus burger. No one ever quibbled with the quality of McD's fries, although I do wish they would offer a choice of sweet potato fries, and soft...+READ

    Perhaps the question is not about healthy drive-thru's, but drive thru's with a higher quality of food. If I look at McDonalds, the biggest thing that would entail would be to increase the quality of their beef... oh, wait... they did that, its called an angus burger. No one ever quibbled with the quality of McD's fries, although I do wish they would offer a choice of sweet potato fries, and soft drinks are soft drinks.. or maybe not. I guess they could offer bottles of the gourmet brands. They do offer salads, somehow those didn't catch on as much as they have at jack-in-the-box. But most chains do offer a grilled chicken sandwich of some kind, YOU can order it without mayo, or easy on the mayo, and no one put a gun to your head for the fries or soda. Order a salad, ask for water, or even ice tea (how healthy is caffeine?)-COLLAPSE

  • While I am solidly on the side of "eating meat is healthy," this doesn't have to be reduced to the usual "meat-eaters vs. vegetarians" debate. I truly believe that healthy food (both meat and veggie) can be served fast, and people will buy it, if it tastes good and it's reasonably priced. I would think, though, that a fast-food restaurant serving strictly vegetarian fare would have to be placed...+READ

    While I am solidly on the side of "eating meat is healthy," this doesn't have to be reduced to the usual "meat-eaters vs. vegetarians" debate. I truly believe that healthy food (both meat and veggie) can be served fast, and people will buy it, if it tastes good and it's reasonably priced. I would think, though, that a fast-food restaurant serving strictly vegetarian fare would have to be placed in the right market.-COLLAPSE

  • It seems to me that a lot of people here haven't done enough research about meat and it's negative impact on health. I know many "junk food vegans" that are still far, far more healthy than the average meat eater.

    Although, for the sake of understanding that people can't change over night, there could be a healthier fast food joint. I'm not the one to figure out how to do it. It's the desire and...+READ

    It seems to me that a lot of people here haven't done enough research about meat and it's negative impact on health. I know many "junk food vegans" that are still far, far more healthy than the average meat eater.

    Although, for the sake of understanding that people can't change over night, there could be a healthier fast food joint. I'm not the one to figure out how to do it. It's the desire and demand for fast, cheap, tasty food that turned us into an obese, factory farm needing nation the begin with.

    Eliminating meat, eggs and or dairy would be the only way to immediately "health up" a fast food joint.

    Yes, lentils are far better for you than ground beef, even organic, grass fed and even if you cover them with congealed cow mammary secretions. Also, some of my favorite, AND very healthy french fries are served at a place near my home. They are sweet potato, and not fried. Go figure! There's no need to fry everything!-COLLAPSE

  • I agree with mynah. lack of meat doesn't = healthy. it seems there can be fast food with better quality ingredients and I believe the food truck boom is part of that movement (see Only Burger in Durham, NC- local, fresh and seasonal ingredients = "greener" and yummy). no one even mentioned the expense. chipotle is expensive, particularly for a lot of the people who buy fast food regularly (and...+READ

    I agree with mynah. lack of meat doesn't = healthy. it seems there can be fast food with better quality ingredients and I believe the food truck boom is part of that movement (see Only Burger in Durham, NC- local, fresh and seasonal ingredients = "greener" and yummy). no one even mentioned the expense. chipotle is expensive, particularly for a lot of the people who buy fast food regularly (and quite frankly, if I am paying 10 bucks, I want something better than a bean burrito loaded with rice as filler).-COLLAPSE

  • Apart from the issue of what these places are actually serving (which I'd rather not know- they're not serving it to me); I deprecate the use of "Healthy" as an either- or sort of adjective. Virtually all foods have advantages and disadvantages that vary depending on the individual, the situation, what it's combined with, etc. The American tendency to seek easy answers to complex questions will b

  • If antibiotics is truly a concern, you should understand that cows r born with antibodies, as r humans which is the very reason antibiotics r given to both. I do not condone excessive antibiotic use in beef but the reality is that they have them.... naturally.

  • Cheddar lentil burgers with fries don't sound much healthier than beef burger. They just don't contain meat, which may satisfy vegetarians, but is not automatically healthier.

  • @kgrote: Anti-biotic free is important because in factory farming they use antibiotics on all animals instead of sick ones because the conditions are so horrible that the animals are constantly ill. On humans antibiotics are only (ideally) used on sick people. I'd rather eat beef from a farm that treated its animals decently rather than over-medicating so they can survive their miserable...+READ

    @kgrote: Anti-biotic free is important because in factory farming they use antibiotics on all animals instead of sick ones because the conditions are so horrible that the animals are constantly ill. On humans antibiotics are only (ideally) used on sick people. I'd rather eat beef from a farm that treated its animals decently rather than over-medicating so they can survive their miserable existence long enough to make it to the chopping block.-COLLAPSE

  • ...and I totally spelled "mayonnaise" wrong.

  • First of all, Burgerville is not healthy. I've had their trendy-sounding Hazlenut Portobello veggie burger, and I'd love to tell you what it tasted like except it was swimming in mayonase.

    Second, "antibiotic-free" just means that you're eating a cow that was sick when it died. Why is it OK to use antibiotics to keep humans healthy but not the animals we eat?

  • What are the healthy options at McDonalds?

  • There are plenty of healthy options at McDonald's and virtually all fast food places. The article seems to be equating natural (and vegetarianism) with healthy and I'd strongly disagree with that.

    French fries are french fries. You can make them out of a combination of organic sweet potatoes and kale, somehow fry them in olive oil, and they'd still be awful for you health. The same goes for...+READ

    There are plenty of healthy options at McDonald's and virtually all fast food places. The article seems to be equating natural (and vegetarianism) with healthy and I'd strongly disagree with that.

    French fries are french fries. You can make them out of a combination of organic sweet potatoes and kale, somehow fry them in olive oil, and they'd still be awful for you health. The same goes for soda. Both are calorie beasts with minimal nutritional (and satiation) returns.

    Depending on how we define vegetables, it's valid to say that the perfect diet doesn't have any vegetable (or fruit). If lentils/beans, nuts/seeds and grains aren't vegetables (just for argument's sake), then we don't need to eat vegetables, since other foods are nutritionally denser. Course, this is only for things we know we need and the diet wouldn't be all that great since it pretty much demands a daily serving of liver.

    A healthy diet is one that has a variety of foods that's eaten in moderation (and balanced by daily needs). One can have a perfectly healthy diet by going through the drive through of the McDonald's and Wendy's of the world.-COLLAPSE