TENANT TREND REPORT · JUNE 2026
By Ken Schuckman · President & CEO, Schuckman Realty Inc.
The most valuable real estate in a shopping center today is not the big box at the back. It is the corner. End-cap and pad positions with a drive-thru lane have quietly become the most fiercely contested spaces we lease, and the rents they command have pulled away from the rest of the center. If you own a center with a viable drive-thru position you are not fully exploiting, you are sitting on unrealized value.
Why the drive-thru won
The pandemic permanently rewired consumer behavior. Mobile ordering, curbside pickup, and the drive-thru became defaults rather than conveniences, and the operators built around them have never looked back. Quick-service restaurants, coffee, and an expanding roster of non-food concepts now treat a drive-thru lane as a non-negotiable site requirement. For many of these tenants, a location without one simply does not make the cut, which concentrates demand on a small number of qualifying positions.
Who is competing for the corner
The bidder pool has broadened well beyond burgers. National coffee platforms are in an arms race for drive-thru pads. Chicken concepts continue their aggressive rollout. And a newer wave of users, from drive-thru pharmacy and quick-lube to coffee-adjacent beverage concepts, now competes for the same end-cap a QSR wants. When three or four credit tenants chase one qualifying pad, the landlord sets the terms.
The repricing
The economics follow the scarcity. Drive-thru-capable pad sites routinely clear at meaningful premiums to comparable in-line space, often on longer terms and with stronger credit behind them. Ground-lease structures, where the tenant builds its own building on the landlord’s pad, can generate some of the highest risk-adjusted yields in the entire center while keeping landlord capital exposure low. That combination is exactly what investors pay up for at sale.
The catch: entitlement
The reason these positions command a premium is the same reason they are hard to create: drive-thru approvals are getting harder, not easier. Many municipalities on Long Island and across the Northeast have tightened or restricted new drive-thru permits over traffic, stacking, and emissions concerns. That regulatory friction protects the value of every drive-thru that is already entitled. Existing, grandfathered drive-thru positions are effectively a scarce, appreciating asset.
Owner takeaway: Audit your center for drive-thru potential before you renew an in-line tenant into a corner position at a flat rent. A qualifying, entitled pad is one of the few places in retail today where you can underwrite genuine rent growth, premium credit, and a higher exit multiple all at once. Protect the entitlement, and lease the corner deliberately.
How we can help
Schuckman Realty represents both shopping center owners and the national QSR, coffee, and drive-thru tenants competing for pad sites. We see the ground-lease comps and the entitlement landscape in real time. If you are evaluating a pad repositioning or a drive-thru deal, we welcome the conversation.
SOURCES
CBRE — “Drive-Thru Demand and the Reshaping of QSR Real Estate”
JLL — “Retail Pad Sites: Pricing the Premium”
Placer.ai — “QSR and Drive-Thru Visitation Trends 2026”
ICSC — “Ground Leases and Net-Lease Pad Investment”