Two of the next quick-serve restaurants being built south of the 120 Bypass will not have dining rooms.

*A Chipotle Digital Kitchen is being built on the southwest corner of Main Street and Woodward Avenue as part of the Marketplace at Main retail center.

*A Chick-fil-A minus a dining room is being  planned for the northwest corner of Atherton Drive and Airport Way as part of the Manteca Crossings.

Dining-room less fast food restaurants are part of a growing trend reflecting changing dining habits and economics. Among the reasons:

*Digital sales are the fastest growing segment of fast food customers.

*Soaring labor costs in California requiring quick-serve restaurants with at least 20 locations in the state to start  paying wages of at least $20 an hour beginning next year.

*A perennial shortage of workers.

*Customers’ growing use of third party delivery service.

*Labor intensive requirement of maintaining dining rooms that require constant cleaning and often maintaining of  second soda dispensing machines.

Manteca is particularly well suited for quick serve restaurants without dining rooms due to it:

*Being part of the fastest growing super-commuter region — those on the road going to and from work at least three hours a day — in the nation. As such, more people in Manteca tends to rely on retail dining options for dinner.

*The number of existing restaurants with Manteca locations means opening a new store without a dining room and not risk losing the sustainable but shrinking dine-in customer segment.

*Manteca has a growing population base with an annual household income of $83,959 reflecting a demographic big on convenience dining that is more expensive.

*Commercial analysis within a mile radius of both proposed Chipotle and Chick-fill-A locations has a 6.25 percent annual growth rate and a median  household income of $104,821 thanks to growth south of the 120 Bypass.

Neither of the two proposed dining room-less quick-serve restaurants are so-called “ghost kitchens.”

“Ghost kitchens” refer to commercial ventures that have neither dining rooms or walk-up service but instead rely 100 percent on delivery services.

Of the two, the Chipotle Digital Kitchen is the most radical departure from the norm.

The Mexican grill’s digital kitchen first started popping up in 2021.

They rely 100 percent on digital orders. That means you cannot place an order even at a walk-up window or the drive-thru lane.

Instead, the walk-up window and drive thru lanes are for collecting orders only.

Some Chipotle Digital Kitchens do offer patio seating for diners.

However, there is no “front line” or place where you can order.

Chick-fil-A is not eliminating the ability to order a at its dining room-less locations as you can do so at the front counter inside the restaurant.

And the high visibility 120 Bypass location off of Airport Way will have a drive thru lane.

But its kitchen will be much large than the current Chick-fil-A on East Yosemite Avenue to handle higher volumes of Door Dash-style delivery and drive-thru business.

Many of the Chick-fil-A locations without dining rooms and the Chipotle Digital Kitchen do not accept cash. Purchases must be by debt or debit card.

While the delivery and pickup trend is a big factor in the shift, the fact it is more profitable by reducing labor and dining room maintenance costs is an even more significant reason chains are making the shift.

Nowhere is that as true as in California where chains with 60 or more locations are facing 25 percent jumps in the minimum they must pay workers starting next year.

At the same time, in order to retain more experienced and higher level workers, the chains also must raise other salaries and pay.

The average hourly wage for fast food workers in California last year was $16.21, according to a report by the Harvard Kennedy School and UC San Francisco. The new minimum wage going into effect in  six months is $20.

The Chipotle Digital Kitchen is roughly a little over a mile from the existing Chipotle location in Manteca that lacks either a walk-up or drive-up window.

The new Chipotle location will he near where Manteca’s fifth McDonald’s is being built

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com