Burger King has unveiled new restaurant designs aimed at delivering flexibility, innovative features and convenient options for how its food can be ordered and delivered, to fulfill changing customer demands.
Created by the Restaurant Brands International (RBI) in-house design group, the plans were drafted with input from technology, operations and food-innovation teams to dramatically improve the brand’s guest experience.
“In March, our in-house design and tech team accelerated new restaurant-design plans and pushed the limits of what a Burger King restaurant could be,” says Josh Kobza, Chief Operating Officer, RBI. “We took into consideration how consumer behaviours are changing and how our guests will want to interact with our restaurants. The result is a new design concept that is attractive to guests and will allow our franchisees to maximize their return.”
The new designs will provide multiple ordering and delivery modes and highlight a physical footprint 60-per-cent smaller than a traditional Burger King restaurant building and site. The new designs feature dedicated mobile-order and curbside-pickup areas, drive-in and walk-up order areas, an enhanced drive-thru experience, exterior dining spaces and sustainable design elements.
The new drive-in areas will allow guests to park under solar-powered canopies, place their orders through the BK App by scanning a QR code at their parking spot and have food quickly delivered to their cars. And to facilitate easier pick-up of mobile and delivery orders, new restaurants will feature coded food lockers facing the exterior of the restaurant. Additional features include double or triple drive thrus, external walk-up windows and a design featuring a shaded patio rather indoor dining.
One design option features a suspended kitchen and dining room above the drive-thru lanes, configured to reduce the building footprint. Drive-thru guests have their order delivered from the suspended kitchen by a conveyor belt system and each lane has its own pick-up spot. This design features a triple drive thru with a dedicated lane for delivery drivers. Guests who want to dine in can enjoy the dining-room and covered outdoor seating situated above the drive-thru entrance. The restaurant design facilitates a 100-per-cent touchless experience.
“The designs we’ve created completely integrate restaurant functionality and technology. The restaurant of the tomorrow merges the best functional technology with unique modern design to elevate our Burger King guest experience,” says Rapha Abreu, global head of Design, RBI. “We designed the interior and exterior spaces like we had a blank sheet of paper, designing without pre-conceived notions of how a Burger King restaurant should look.”
The first restaurants featuring the new designs will be built in 2021 in Miami, Latin America and the Caribbean.
