I haven't used a drive through in decades. How is one able to pay for the next person's food?
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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You just ask. It's an American thing to do. They think it's funny to do. Like tipping and charity and other things where you can pay for feeling good about yourself.
What happens is that the next car also pays forward and so on until the chain breaks. It makes the news every once in a while when they manage to keep it up for an entire day.
Some drive thru have two windows, one where you pay and one where you pickup. So you just tell the pay window that you have your car and the car behind you.
Nowadays most places either only have one window and make one person do both jobs, also they don't have to pay as many people. The overall service is slower, but no one seems to care enough.
Sometimes you can even find older restaurants that have two windows and one is just permanently closed.
Also Starbucks had (still has?) a trend where you pay for the car behind you as a sort of pay it forward thing. Although in that scenario you probably can't take someone else's food.
Then everyone clapped and he was crowned king and now he lives on McDonald's Mountain.
A king of burgers, a Burger King
Wendy
That's his wife
How long does it take to say, "One sack of shit, please."?
And then places will refuse to let ppl pay for the food of others because ppl like you exploited that system of goodwill to do evil. Thanks for that, making the world worse, one petty small step at a time.
And everybody clapped
LET ME HAVE THIS
Not acusdomed to drive throughs. How would the guy get the karens receipt?
By paying for it at the first window. He's in front of her. He gets to pay, says "I'm paying for me and car behind me. I need both receipts please"
Goes to second window for pickup. Shows both receipts, gets given both orders.
Leaves.
How would the person behind have already ordered if they're behind?
Why would the cashier not check with the person behind that they want someone else to pay?
The whole thing sounds implausible and ragebait.
This literally happens all the time.. Have you been through a drive through?
You order first, then at the first window you pay, then at the second window you pick up what you ordered. So you can pay for the car behind you, people do it, sometimes they get a long chain of people doing it, all paying for the car behind them.
Personally I think the long chain is dumb, and I won't participate if I'm in the middle. If nobody ends it then nobody benefits from it. Might as well be me, I'm not rich.
However.. you are right, I don't think it would be easy to take the food of the car behind you, even if you paid for it. I've never worked in fast food but I'm sure there's checks in place to make sure the right car gets the food, so you'd have to explain yourself. I imagine?
Edit: reminded me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATjL9CmwkCo
I have, but not in a long time.
I didn't know payment chains were a thing. Makes little sense to me, the Tim Robinson sketch kind of shows the gist of why, but why not.
Drive through consists of five distinct locations:
- Ordering at a speaker stand.
- Paying at the first window (which is not where you ordered)
- Waiting at the second window to get told to go to the third window.
- Being told to move out of the line, and park next to it, because an order of a royale with cheese, a medium fries with mayo, and a medium sprite is too complex of an order to process fast.
- Going down the highway, crying because nobody remembers pulp fiction, and eating your bag of crap.
You are assuming that A) drive thru workers give a fuck & B) drive thru workers give a fuck.
"I want to pay for the car behind me" THEM: "ok"
"I need to grab both these orders." THEM: "ok"
They aren't paid enough to care. At worst the second car had to wait for her food to be remade and got it for free - the horror.
The employees then say 'this order is for a white sedan' and then hand you your order and only your order.
And only McDonalds wins.
eh. they get the same amount of business either way
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(17 replies)
I was driving back from Atlanta a few years ago and stopped into a chicfila drivethru to grab some lunch on the go. I didn't realize how backed up they were until i was already stuck in line and had no way to get out. There were 2 parking lot entrances merging into 1 drive-thru lane, the guy in front of me let a car from the other lane go in, then he went, so I figured the understanding was zipper merging and just taking basic turns so I let the other car go, then I went. When I got to the person to take me order she said "The guy in front of you has already paid for your meal for letting them go in front of you."
When basic courtesy is so rare it needs to be rewarded.
I had a run in in the drive thru a couple years back. I pulled into one of the two lanes at McD, and another car went through the second lane. I wait my turn, and then try to pull forward, but the person in the other car was riding up on the bumper of the person ahead of them, like, clearly intentionally making sure there was no room for me to take my turn.
So I roll down my window and call out "Hey, they're gonna get our orders mixed up" and before I'd even finished my sentence the driver GOES BALLISTIC on me. Just screaming "oh my God, really? Really?? Over a burger? Really?? Really? Really??" And I just rolled my window back up. The person drove forward just far enough to keep me from moving ahead, but not far enough to get to the first window to pay. They waited. Waited until the line cleared up. Then they gunned it past the pay window and straight to the food window.
I pulled up to the pay window, rolled mine down and loudly declared "Yeah, could I get my receipt too? I think this person ahead of my is trying to take my food!"
At which point the driver ahead of me peeled out of the drive thru without having received any food.
Window person said that such a tactic had been done a few other times that month by other people.
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(4 replies)
Saw this a few months ago but it was from a woman. Congrats on the transition!
And the lady order?
55 BURGERS 55 FRIES 55 TACOS 55 PIES 55 COKES 100 TATER TOTS 100 PIZZA 100 TENDERS 100 MEATBALLS 100 COFFEES 55 WINGS 55 SHAKES 55 PANCAKES 55 PASTAS 55 PASTAS AND 155 TATERS
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This definitely happened.
I worked a drive-through for long enough to believe it.
Same. Every day was like a lengthy masterclass in infinite fresh flavors of assholery and Karen-hood. As soon as you think you've plumbed the shadowy depths of the human condition, the floor comes out from under you. Then, all of a sudden, you're gazing straight into the maw of a clapped out Chevy Trailblazer where there used to be a drive thru window, and the driver is now prancing around nude, ranting about dipping sauces and firing a 12-gauge into the ceiling tiles.
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