So THAT'S How They Do It

For the past year or so that McDonalds has had two drive-thru lanes, I've been curious and wanted to know how in the hell they could have two drive-thru lanes and still get all (well, most) of the orders to the right cars.  Well, tonight, I found out the answer.

We stopped at McD's on the way home from church tonight for their awesome Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and used the drive-thru.  Both of the drive-thru lanes were full, but they were moving through pretty quickly.  But I digress.  We placed our order and drove on through, merging into the one lane to pay, and this prompted yet another conversation about how they keep the orders straight with two drive-thru lanes.  Our question was answered when we got to the window to pay.  I looked through the window and saw two large computer monitor screens.  One screen was where they pressed the buttons for your actual order, and the other screen was divided into four sections, and each section had a picture of a car in the drive-thru with their order printed on the left of the screen.  So when the car came up to the window to pay, the money-taker looks at the car and then matches it with the picture of said car on the screen and there you have it.  So now, we know how they do it.