Burger King has unveiled a new ‘touchless’ concept store, designed to meet the challenges of business during a pandemic and adapt to the future “new normal”.

The US store features physically contactless experiences such as mobile ordering and curbside pick-up areas and drive-in and walk-up order areas.

“In March our in-house design and tech team accelerated new restaurant design plans and pushed the limits of what a Burger King restaurant could be,” said Josh Kobza, COO at Restaurant Brands International.

“We took into consideration how consumer behaviours are changing and how our guests will want to interact with our restaurants. The result is a new design concept that is attractive to guests and will allow our franchisees to maximise their return.”

Designed in-house, the store is expected to provide multiple ordering and delivery modes and highlight a physical footprint 60-per-cent smaller than a traditional Burger King restaurant.

A ‘drive-in’ service allows customers to park under canopies doubling as solar power harvesting panels and place orders by scanning a QR code from the Burger King app. For mobile and delivery orders, customers can pick up their order at coded food lockers.

To reduce its physical footprint, the store features a “suspended” kitchen and dining room located above the drive-thru lanes. Orders will be delivered from the suspended kitchen by a conveyor belt system, and each lane has its own pick-up spot.

“The designs we’ve created completely integrate restaurant functionality and technology, said Rapha Abreu, global head of design at Restaurant Brands International. “We designed the interior and exterior spaces like we had a blank sheet of paper, designing without preconceived notions of how a Burger King restaurant should look.”

Burger King’s first new design stores will be built next year in Miami, Latin America and the Caribbean.