Pizza Hut Goes For Speed With Restaurant Drive-Thrus

Pizza Hut is adding drive-thrus at more than 1,500 of its U.S. restaurants as it looks to make it faster and more convenient for customers to pick up their pizza orders.

The new Hut Lanes are designed to offer a safer way to receive orders that were made online through a pickup window, as consumers look for contactless ways to order food during the pandemic.

To adapt to these new customer behaviors, the pizza chain began offering curbside pickup of orders placed online, and now with its drive-thrus, customers that place digital orders also have the option to stay in their vehicles to get their pizzas.

“We are giving our customers a variety of options to optimize their pizza-eating experience as we build on our business momentum,” Nicolas Burquier, chief customer & operations officer at Pizza Hut, said in a statement.

Customers can access the Hut Lane after ordering through the Pizza Hut app, on PizzaHut.com, or over the phone. Upon arrival at their local Pizza Hut restaurant, they can pull up to the drive-thru window, grab their order, and go, never having to park their car in the process.

For chains that don’t currently have a drive-thru option, Pizza Hut will continue to offer the contactless curbside pickup but did say that even more locations will add the Hut Lane option in the future.

Pizza Hut has been working to modernize its restaurants and improve the customer experience through speed and convenience. The chain saw consumers shift toward delivery and carryout orders during the pandemic as many restaurant dining rooms across the country remained closed due to the COVID crisis.

Pizza Hut, which is owned by parent company Yum! Brands (YUM), has continued to open restaurants despite the pinch of the pandemic. The company reported that it opened 337 gross new restaurants for the chain duringthe fourth quarter of 2020 while it closed 540. The company said that Pizza Hut’s same sales grew 21% in the U.S. for the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.

Yum! Brands also owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Habit Burger Grill.

Shares of Yum! Brands were trading at $109.84 as of 1:49 p.m. ET, up 63 cents, or 0.58%.