Fast Food Just Admitted the Kiosk Experiment Is Failing

I'd just read a Wall Street Journal article about fast food chains walking back the kiosk experiment, and it was still rattling around in my head when I pulled into a Wendy's for lunch. So I decided to run my own version of the experiment.

An elderly couple was working through one of the two ordering kiosks, husband driving the screen, wife watching over his shoulder. Normally I'm the guy who walks over and helps. This time I didn't. I wanted to see how it actually played out, so I let it run instead of stepping in.

I ordered a Double Bacon Classic at the open kiosk, built a five part custom Diet Coke at the Freestyle machine, and was already on my first bite before that couple finished ordering a burger and fries. Ten minutes, easy, for something that should have taken ninety seconds with a person at the counter.

Turns out the biggest names in fast food noticed the same problem, and they're spending real money to fix it.

The receipts

Per the Journal's reporting, McDonald's global chief people officer said flatly that price and food still matter, but experience has become a bigger deal than it used to be. McDonald's is retraining more than two million restaurant workers worldwide this fall and will start grading franchisees partly on hospitality. Employees no longer have to push the app on every customer interaction, a requirement McDonald's dropped because it was getting in the way of just being a decent human at the counter.

Burger King is requiring staffed counters and order-accuracy checks, and its new restaurant prototype moves kiosks to the side of the lobby instead of front and center. Wendy's is reviewing its own AI drive-thru trials to see whether the technology is actually helping or just adding friction. Starbucks is putting fresh money into training and labor.

Tech done right versus tech done wrong

I want to be clear about something. This isn't a "technology ruined fast food" take. My own Freestyle order is proof of the opposite. Building a five part custom soda blend in under a minute is something no human could do that fast or that precisely. That's technology handling complexity better than a person could, and getting out of the way while it does it.

The kiosk, in that same restaurant, on that same visit, did the opposite. It took a simple task and turned it into a ten-minute ordeal for two people who just needed a little help. Same store, same day. One piece of technology removed friction. One piece of technology became the friction.

Chick-fil-A consistently scores highest for service in Technomic's research, and part of how they do it is by putting actual people, tablet in hand, out in the drive-through line. That's not "no technology." That's a person with a tool, working the line, instead of a screen working alone.

THE TAKEAWAY Technology's job is to remove friction, not relationships. The tools that win next are built to work alongside a person, not instead of one.

What this means if you're running a restaurant

The takeaway isn't to rip out your kiosks. Digital ordering isn't going anywhere and it shouldn't. But watch your dining room the way I watched that Wendy's. Where is the technology saving your customers time, and where is it quietly costing them time while nobody's tracking it? A kiosk that sits unstaffed with a confused customer stuck at it for ten minutes isn't a convenience. It's a liability you're not measuring.

Listen to the full episode

I go deeper on the Chick-fil-A data, the generational split in how customers want to order, and an idea for kiosks I'd love to see built, straight out of the self-checkout playbook.

Have you ever had to help a stranger through a kiosk? Or watched technology in your restaurant create more friction than it removed? I'd love to hear about it.

Keep building modern solutions for modern restaurants.

Source: Haddon, Heather. “America’s Fast-Food Chains Are Making a Big Pivot—Back to Humans.” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10, 2026.