Wendy’s opened the first modern fast-food drive-through window at its Columbus, Ohio, restaurant in 1970.
Dave Thomas founded Wendy’s in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio, and the chain added a drive-through window the following year. The feature allowed customers to order and receive food directly from a service window, rather than using the older drive-in model in which carhops delivered meals to parked vehicles.
The innovation helped Wendy’s compete in a rapidly changing fast-food market, where convenience and speed were becoming central to restaurant design. Wendy’s later became known for square hamburgers, its Frosty dessert, and the “Where’s the beef?” advertising campaign.
The 1970 date is sometimes mixed up with earlier drive-in or drive-through experiments by other restaurant companies. Wendy’s milestone refers specifically to the modern window-based format associated with contemporary fast-food restaurants.