"Extremely" Drunk Driver Falls Asleep Ordering Curly Fries at Arby's Drive-Thru

Police in Minnesota arrested a man accused of driving drunk while trying to order curly fries in an Arby's drive-thru Sunday.  Police found the unidentified man, 43, asleep behind the wheel of his car in the drive-thru after placing his order, the Chaska Police Department posted on Facebook.  "Luckily, an observant patron noticed this and was able to open the driver's door and shift the vehicle into park, likely preventing damage to property and injury to others," the police said.  It's not the first time a drunken driver has attempted to order fast food through a restaurant drive-thru — and not even the first time involving an Arby's.  Read on for more details on this apparently commonplace occurrence.

The man in Chaska was taken into custody and faces unspecified charges.  Police say he was too intoxicated to take a field sobriety test, so they obtained a search warrant to draw blood.  "During the process, the man admitted to drinking Boone's Farm earlier," police said on Facebook.  "Becoming extremely drunk and then driving to get curly fries is an incredibly selfish decision," the police added. "Thankfully the man was not driving at higher speeds on the city streets or highways at the time he fell asleep."

An Arby's manager in White Lake Township, Michigan, called police after a woman who appeared to be "highly drunk" ordered food in a drive-thru in September 2016.  "I went to open the window, and it literally smelled, like, you could open up a bottle of vodka or tequila and it was, like, right in my nose," the assistant manager, Bobbi Langois, told a local news station.  Langois called police after she saw a child in the car. To keep the woman at the Arby's, Langois stalled and told her the food was being prepared.  When police arrived, they found the woman asleep at the wheel in the drive-through lane with open bottles of alcohol beside her. She was arrested and faced charges of drunken driving and child endangerment.

Fast food restaurants in Columbus, Indiana, saw four incidents involving drunken drivers in one two-week period in 2021.  They included one incident at a McDonald's restaurant in which a person accused of driving drunk crashed into another car in the drive-thru lane then attempted to drive away.  Police stopped the car and found empty beer cans inside. The driver failed field sobriety tests and a breath test, police said. He was arrested and charged.

The driver of a car in the drive-thru lane of a Montana Burger King was drinking from a bottle and acting "really sloppy" in one 2021 incident, police said.  Crew members told the driver to park and wait while they prepared his food, then called 911.  "The first officer on the scene observed the vehicle matching the description sitting in the middle of the parking lot occupied by three persons," police said. Police smelled alcohol, found an open container and conducted a field sobriety test on the driver.  The driver was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Someone even started a thread on Reddit a few years back with the question: "For fast food drive-thru attendants — how do you deal with belligerently drunk drivers? Do you have any legal obligations? Have you ever called the cops on one?"  The answers were illuminating.  One respondent said, "A man pulled up to the window and gave me his money. He fumbled a bit but I didn't think anything of it. I close the window and open the drawer to put the money in. I turn back to give him his change and this motherf–ker is licking the drive thru window like a lollipop. We called the police."  Another respondent said, "As someone who worked at Taco Bell, … I only worked there 6 months, and I must have seen somebody with an open container at least once a week. We never called the cops."  Still another said, "We called the cops a couple of times when I worked in fast food. We'd tell the person we were waiting for one item from their order & have them pull ahead or into a parking space, then call the cops."