There’s fast food, and then there’s the fastest food—the kind of experience that takes you from the drive-thru window to chowing down in minutes. Call us impatient, but when our stomachs start grumbling, a speedy drive-thru line is a savior. This need for speed raises an important question: Which fast-food restaurant offers the absolute quickest drive-thru service?

Lucky for us, Intouch Insight partnered with QSR magazine to evaluate the drive-thru speediness of the 13 most popular fast-food chains around. They’ve been doing this particular survey for 25 years, so you know they’ll steer you in the right direction the next time you’ve got the munchies. But is speed enough when you’re in the mood for quality fast food? The survey makes the case that overall customer satisfaction matters too.

Read on to learn which drive-thru windows offer the fastest food, serve up the most accurate orders and leave customers driving away with a smile.

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How did the survey determine the fastest drive-thru?

For the 25th annual drive-thru study, mystery shoppers visited 165 locations of each of these 13 popular fast-food chains and measured the total amount of time they spent in the drive-thru:

  • Arby’s
  • Burger King
  • Chick-fil-A
  • Dunkin’
  • Dutch Bros
  • KFC
  • McDonald’s
  • Popeyes
  • Raising Cane’s
  • Starbucks
  • Taco Bell
  • Tim Hortons
  • Wendy’s

In addition to the more than 2,100 mystery-shopper visits conducted in June and July of 2025, this year the report added an artificial intelligence (AI) component for brands that rolled out voice-AI ordering. Secret shoppers visited Burger King, Taco Bell and Wendy’s 40 times each to test to test these tech-savvy drive-thru experiences.

And to make sure they were getting a proper average wait time, researchers ordered during different hours of the day, grabbing breakfast, lunch and dinner service. (It must’ve been a hard job ordering all of those McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, but someone had to do it.)

Who has the fastest food?

Two story Taco Bell Defy is the first-of-its-kind restaurant that has multiple drive-thru lanes and uses a proprietary lift system to deliver food
UCG/GETTY IMAGES

Once again, it’s Taco Bell! For the fifth year in a row, Taco Bell reigns supreme as the fastest fast-food drive-thru in the country. While overall wait times went up this year, if you get hungry and spot the popular Tex-Mex chain, you could go from pulling into the drive-thru to eating a bean burrito in under five minutes.

Here are the results for the top three restaurants surveyed, by total wait time:

  • Taco Bell: 4 minutes, 16 seconds
  • KFC: 4 minutes, 21 seconds
  • Tim Hortons: 4 minutes, 25 seconds

Taco Bell also came out on top when judged by how long it took shoppers to get their food after ordering (3 minutes, 15 seconds), while Tim Hortons smoked the competition when measuring how long it took to place an order after entering the drive-thru (40 seconds).

How else did the survey rate each drive-thru?

Speed is only one element of the fast-food experience, so the research didn’t stop there. Intouch Insight and QSR also looked at the busiest drive-thru, most accurate orders and friendliest customer service. And the report stresses that today’s drive-thru experiences are changing fast, with mobile apps and customizations making drive-thru ordering more complex than in years past. Don’t be surprised to see even more categories going forward.

Here’s how the restaurants stacked up:

Busiest drive-thru

Here’s how many cars, on average, were waiting in line for their orders at the top three busiest chains.

  • Chick-fil-A: 2.72 cars
  • Dutch Bros: 2.28 cars
  • Raising Cane’s: 2.13 cars

Most accurate drive-thru

Want to ensure your order is filled correctly and completely? Head to one of these coffee-centric drive-thru restaurants.

  • Dutch Bros: 96% accurate
  • Dunkin’: 91% accurate
  • Tim Hortons: 90% accurate

Fastest window time

If you hate sitting at the drive-thru window watching workers scurry to bring you your food, here are the top three shortest window wait times:

  • Raising Cane’s: 1 minute, 13 seconds
  • Chick-fil-A: 1 minute, 15 seconds
  • Taco Bell: 1 minute, 19 seconds

Which drive-thru had the highest overall satisfaction?

Wait time may be a big deal (it is fast food, after all), but it’s not the only reason to frequent a restaurant. To anyone who’s a fan, it’s probably no surprise that Chick-fil-A has a 98% customer satisfaction rate. What might be surprising is that this year it has some competition.

That’s right—it’s a tie! Dutch Bros, a newcomer to the survey, also scored 98% in overall satisfaction, and one key reason appears to be the friendliness of the restaurant staff. Both Chick-fil-A and Dutch Bros scored high in this category, with 93% and 92% of shoppers rating the service as friendly. Popeye’s came in third in overall satisfaction, at 96%.

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Sources:

  • Intouch Insight: “Drive-Thru Study 2025”
  • QSR: “Taco Bell Is Once Again the Fastest Drive-Thru in America”