How Amy’s Drive-Thru Is Creating The Future Of Fast Food
“Everybody said we couldn’t do it, but we set up a test kitchen in our warehouse space and we did it.” — Andy Berliner, Amy’s Kitchen Co-founder
The times, they are a-changin’.
While McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain, has been on a steep sales downward spiral for months, Amy’s Drive-Thru has people lining up around the corner to buy burgers, shakes and fries made with local, organic, non-GMO, gluten-free and vegan ingredients.
As more people learn about the detriment of processed foods on our health, the health of the planet and the welfare of animals raised in industrial farms, we’re reaching a tipping point where healthier, more sustainable and ethical choices are becoming the norm. Amy’s Drive-Thru offers a glimpse into the kind of future many of us want to see.
Amy’s is very much a fast-food place, providing quick service, convenience, and low prices. But when it comes to the quality of the food and the overall vibe of the place, it’s a completely new experience.
The menu includes American classics like burgers, burritos, mac and cheese, pizzas, salads, chili and milkshakes but everything is vegetarian or vegan. The entire menu is non-GMO, egg free and peanut free. 95% is organic and most ingredients are sourced from nearby farms. You can also get gluten-free menu options.
Amy’s versions of the Big Mac and Double-Double are not only meat-free, they’re also grilled onsite and made with fresh buns baked daily from scratch. You can also order a wheat-free version and you can pair your meal with fresh squeezed lemonade or a dairy-free milkshake.
The salads are not just a few romaine leaves with a couple of tomato slices and packaged dressing. They’re made with seasonal veggies, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, goat cheese, tofu, dried cranberries and hummus, most of it sourced locally.
Even though everything at Amy’s Drive-Thru is hand made onsite and with the highest quality ingredients, they somehow manage to keep their prices competitive. A single patty burger is $2.99, a standard burrito is $4.69, a personal cheese pizza is $5.89 and salads start at $3.99. This is nothing short of impressive.
“Other companies manufacture food, we cook it.” — Andy Berliner
“Consumers of all ages, but particularly millennials, are aware that what they eat affects their health, their well-being and how they feel” — Andy Berliner
The menu is not the only thing different about Amy’s Drive-Thru. Powered partly by solar energy, the building has a living roof, which helps to reduce the building’s energy needs. The site also has a water tower to collect rain used to water the roof and the wood from the barn torn down to build the restaurant was shipped to the company’s Idaho plant for re-use.
Inside, the dining tables are made from retired auto brake drums. Most of the furniture is made from wood off-cuts, upcycled from discarded wood pieces or Forest Stewardship certified wood. The tableware is made out of recyclable, non-GMO materials and it’s collected on site for recycling. Even the takeout bags and boxes are printed with non-GMO ink.
Right now Amy’s Drive-Thru has one location in Rohnert Park, just north of San Francisco. “It’s a one-off at this point, but our intention would be to grow it slowly over the next few years, and if it’s successful as many people feel it will be, in five years or so to expand it more rapidly.”
Technically, Amy’s Drive Thru is not a startup. The concept is the brainchild of Amy’s Kitchen, Andy and Rachel Berliner’s vegetarian frozen food empire and family affair. They’ve been serving great-tasting, organic, non-GMO frozen meals since 1987, the same year their daughter Amy was born.
The couple got the idea for Amy’s Kitchen when Andy brought home a ready-made meal for Rachel, then pregnant with Amy, that tasted like cardboard. They thought they could do better and started working on a kitchen-made vegetable potpie using fresh, local, organic ingredients to be, above all else, delicious.
The commitment to vegetarian, real food ingredients that people use in their own kitchens, which has been the hallmark of Amy’s Kitchen, extends to the drive-thru concept as well.
So does the idea of using home cooking methods, which explains the larger kitchen, using their own recipes, sourcing their own ingredients and making products on location. It’s like a home kitchen, only bigger.
“We want to help people eat really well, even if they don’t have the time or ability to cook for themselves.” — Rachel Berliner, Amy’s Kitchen Co-founder
Learn more about Amy’s Drive-Thru here and Amy’s Kitchen here
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