A drive-through restaurant serves customers in their vehicles. Orders are taken and food (typically fast food such as McDonalds) is served without the customers needing to leave their vehicles.

Communication with the staff is often made via an intercom. These intercom conversations have a stereotype of being mutually unintelligable, and are a frequent target of humor.

In 2005, one major fast food company announced plans to take drive through orders from a central location, the theory being that dedicated order takers would make fewer errors than the in-store order takers.