BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — Editor's Note: The video above originally aired on KARE 11 on Aug. 21, 2021.
Can't stand waiting in long drive-thru lines to grab a quick bite? A soon-to-open Taco Bell location hopes to solve that problem and give new meaning to "fast" food.
On Tuesday, June 7, the first-of-its-kind two-story Taco Bell Defy opens in Brooklyn Park. The concept, born from the pandemic, aims to reinvent the drive-thru and cut back on bottlenecks and backups as customers wait to pick up their orders.
Here's how it works.
This Taco Bell has four drive-thru lanes, each of which serves a different purpose. There are lines for customers who preorder their Crunchwrap Supremes and Quesaritos ahead of time on the Taco Bell app, a spot for delivery drivers to pull up and quickly grab orders made with third-party partners, and then a single traditional drive-thru lane.
But there's a twist – a drive-thru attendant isn't handing you your food through a window. Instead, orders are lowered down to your car.
"The guest comes in, they pull up to the arrival monitor and they scan their phone. It checks in for orders prepared and assigns it to a lane. Once the order is assigned to the lane, we just verify the customer's name, we lift up the top of the lift, put the food in, push the two buttons and it's on its way," explained Jarret Persons, regional manager for Border Foods.
WATCH: First-of-its-kind Taco Bell coming to Brooklyn Park
Minneapolis-based Vertical Works designed a proprietary lift that lowers food from the second-story kitchen, located above the drive-thru line, down to your car. The goal is to keep service times to two minutes or less by using digital check-in screens and two-way audio between customers and employees.
Border Foods, the Minnesota-based company and one of the largest Taco Bell franchises in the country, is behind the new gravity-defying concept. The family-owned Taco Bell franchisee has 230 locations across the upper Midwest and is headquartered in New Hope.
Taco Bell Defy is located at 94th Avenue North in Brooklyn Park.
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