Pulling up to the Panera Bread menu board, a patron orders chicken noodle soup, then drives to the window to pay. This situation will be possible as Panera Bread has been working on a new drive thru over the course of the summer, aiming for a Dec. 10 release.

“It’s going to affect the business tremendously; it will add probably 25 percent on to our weekly sales,” general manager Patrick Higley said. “There is a lot of excitement already because of a lot of our guests who come in, will stop by more often when they don’t have to get out of their cars, especially in the winter.”

The drive thru will help to bring in new customers for Panera Bread and maintain their core group of customers, leading to the increase in profits Higley mentioned.

“I go to Panera for food in a hurry and I think the drive thru will make it easier for me,” senior Macyn Stevens said. “it will also be easier than ordering ahead of time, then going inside and picking it up. The drive thru will make it easier for people who are on the go to get food, without having to go inside and order it to go, and if you just order a drink or something, it will be faster.”

Panera Bread aims to increase the speeds of handing out orders with the drive thru by having it act as a separate operation from the main building. The drive thru will not rely on the main building to produce orders for customers, leaving the main operations of the restaurant alone.

“I think it’s cool that they are putting in a drive thru,” junior Theodore Graves said. “When I worked there, many people would just order before hand and come pick their food up, but a lot of other people would come in and order to have their food to go. This would make certain times, specifically noon, really busy and having a drive thru would help stop the restaurant from getting too busy.”

With Panera Bread treating its drive thru as a separate entity that exists by itself, away from the main area of the restaurant. The drive thru will help alleviate the customers who are ordering their food to go inside the restaurant as they will be able to go to an area dedicated to it. Once the drive thru is finished and opened for their customers, the Panera Bread staff will be ready and waiting to take orders.