Starting today, all of Austin's P. Terry's Hamburgers drive-thru only locations will allow walk-up access, according to owner Patrick Terry.
After Austinite (and transit advocate) Jace Deloney pointed out on Twitter that a friend of his on foot had been turned away from the P. Terry's drive-thru on South Congress and Ben White, the company said Thursday it wouldn't be safe to allow walk-up access at their drive-thru only locations. Deloney pointed out a section of the city's municipal codethat says drive-thru only businesses "must provide safe and convenient access for pedestrians to the drive-through facility."
After KUT got in touch with P. Terry's about the issue and showed them the city code, owner Patrick Terry says all of their locations, effective immediately, will allow walk-up access, even if they are drive-thru only.
"We're not in business to break rules," Terry tells KUT, saying he was unaware of the code until today. "We try really hard to serve our customers, and we go out of our way to do that. If there's a city code saying we need to do this all the time, we'll do it all the time. We'll make sure we accommodate our pedestrian customers at all hours."
Terry says they'll use orange cones to provide a buffer for people to walk up and order at the drive-thru only locations.
P. Terry's has ten locations in Austin, three of them drive-thru only, and several more are in the works.
