Taco Bell unveils Nevada’s first ‘Go Mobile’ location
Dozens of Taco Bell restaurants can be found across the Las Vegas Valley, but the location that opened this week is one of just 12 in the U.S. catering to customers picking up orders placed online instead of coming inside to eat.
The latest iteration of the popular fast-food restaurant opened Monday at 2224 E. Craig Road, marking the first Taco Bell Go Mobile in Nevada.
At first glance, it may look similar to a regular restaurant, but it offers no indoor dining. Instead it has double drive-thru lanes, one for traditional drive-thru customers and the second for mobile orders from delivery apps.
Growing demand
The North Las Vegas location was selected because of the area’s rapid-growing population and because all the restaurants owned by Diversified Restaurant Group are “high volume,” according to Geno Woolard, director of operations at Diversified Restaurant Group.
Local resident Brian Payton had a mixed reaction when he discovered the Go Mobile location while on his route home from work. While disappointed that the location had no dine-in seating, Payton said he liked how the location separates pre-orders and drive-thru orders
“It doesn’t hold up the regular drive-thru line for people just coming through,” Payton said. “It’s convenient.”
Officials with Las Vegas-based Diversified Restaurant Group, which also operates the Taco Bell Cantina on the Strip, hope the new format will cater to increasing demand from digital food orders.
“This Go Mobile is all about making it more efficient for the consumer,” said Diversified Restaurant Group President SG Elison.
Catering to online and mobile orders is key for the future, said Elison, who estimates about 25 percent of Taco Bell orders are from delivery apps and notes that number could grow to 50 percent within the next few years.
Issues with delivery orders can have a strong effect on customer satisfaction.
Research in 2020 from First Orion, a telecommunication technology company, issued a survey drawing 2,000 responses regarding food delivery apps.
It found that 50 percent of reported problems with food delivery apps revolved around late delivery. The second-biggest complaint was getting delivery of an incorrect order, which made up 37 percent of the survey’s responses.
The company also hopes that the Go Mobile Taco Bell will help neighboring Taco Bell locations facing high demand because the new location will handle a majority of delivery orders, Woolard said.
While Go Mobile Taco Bell’s main focus is on drive-thru orders, customers can still walk up and order at kiosks in front of the restaurant and have the option to eat outside near the drive-thru lanes.
Payton, who has been a regular at Taco Bell for the last five or so years, said that when he first went to the Go Mobile location he ordered off the kiosk and that he noted its simplicity, allowing him to customize his order more easily than if he was ordering through an employee.
“You pick what you want and it pops up all the ingredients and then you can say ‘yes extra this, no none of that,’” he said. “It’s a lot easier to pick and choose what you want on a particular item.”
Improving efficiency
Go Mobile’s kitchen also can handle orders for delivery drivers separately from drive-thru orders, Woolard said. Separating the kitchen by order is more efficient because delivery orders tend to be more complex and take longer to complete, he said.
“The orders are very big. What tends to happen is those drivers get stuck in that drive-thru lane, and it slows things down for our regular customers,” he said. “We’re going to be able to speed up our traditional drive-thru by probably a good 30 percent.”
Increasing efficiency is key for Taco Bell since the goal is to have each order fulfilled in less than three and a half minutes, Elison said.
He said the North Las Vegas site will be closely monitored over the next year to see how it performs. If it does well, more Go Mobile locations could be added in the valley.
Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on Twitter.
