The pandemic has turned drive-thru lanes from a convenience into a near necessity.As a result, the 2020 SeeLevel HX Drive-Thru study, may be the most pertinent drive-thru report ever.As expected, restaurant's average drive-thru times across the board were slower this year than last.And yet, the report reveals that the restaurants themselves weren’t necessarily to blame.Surprisingly, service time, the time from placing an order to picking up, was actually 16.9 seconds faster this year at 238.1 seconds compared to 255 seconds in 2019, SeeLevel HX Drive-Thru study.These results imply that chains did try to speed up their service.But the increased volume of customers due to COVID-19 managed to slow things down.The pandemic is continuing to have a massive impact on [restaurants] from a spike in traffic and stricter safety standards and protocols to a substantial increase in staffing turnover and training, so I’m not surprised to see a dip in speed of service, Lisa van Kesteren, SeeLevel HX CEO