Tomer Molovinsky breaks down how Starbucks, McDonald's, Chipotle, and Dunkin' use bad weather to drive app orders and delivery sales. They shift messaging to emphasize convenience, boost loyalty rewards on comfort food, send weather-timed push notifications with discounts, remove delivery fees, personalize offers based on past purchases, and create urgent time-limited promotions.
It's been brutally cold this winter, and when it snows, small restaurants tend to panic. Foot traffic drops, staff calls out, sales slow down. But brands like Starbucks, McDonald's, Chipotle, and Dunkin', they've figured this out, and they often increase their digital sales on these days. So here's exactly how they use apps, loyalty, delivery, and promotions to win on bad weather days, and how smaller brands can copy them. Strategy number 1: Immediately shift to convenience mode. The second bad weather hits, messaging should change. Home screen banners should switch to "Order ahead, skip the line," "Stay warm, we'll bring it to ya," or "Free delivery today." Starbucks really pushes this hard in their app, and especially during storms. Drive-thru and pickup become the hero experience, and this reframes the weather from a problem to a reason to use their app. Strategy 2: Increased loyalty value on comfort items. It's a cold day, hot drinks equal bonus stars at Starbucks. Hot coffee equals bonus points at Dunkin'. Chipotle often promotes bowls and burritos with double rewards inside their app during their slowest days. This does two things: it drives frequency and it protects margin better than blanket discounts. Points feel cheaper than cash discounts but convert incredibly well. Strategy 3: use push notifications aggressively. Bad weather is one of the highest converting push notification days because the intent is already there. Example structure: snowing? Warm up with $2 off delivery today. McDonald's app frequently drops limited-time weather-aligned offers— fries, McCafe drinks, bundled deals. The key is timing. Push within the first 2 to 3 hours of the storm starting. That window converts best. Strategy 4: Reduce delivery friction. Rain and snow drive delivery demand way up, but fees kill conversion. So what do they do? Well, you can lower delivery fees temporarily, offer free delivery over a minimum order, or you can bundle deals to increase AOV. Chipotle has leaned heavily into at-first delivery incentives rather than pushing customers exclusively to marketplaces. Why? First-party data, loyalty retention, and higher lifetime value. Strategy number 5: Personalize based on past orders. This is where big brands really win. If you order lattes, you get hot drink promos. Burritos, you get bowl promos. Family meals, you get bundled dinner offers. Weather increases comfort cravings. Personalized comfort wins. Generic discounts don't convert nearly as well. Strategy number 6: Create short windows of urgency. For an example, you can have a snow day promo until 4:00 PM only. A rainy afternoon bonus points from 2:00 to 5:00 PM. McDonald's is really strong at limited app windows because urgency increases digital spikes really fast. All right, so to wrap this all up, bad weather should not necessarily be looked at as another just slow day. It's a digital opportunity for you. The brands that win, they lean into mobile ordering, they boost loyalty incentives, they personalize offers, and they adjust delivery pricing. While they're creating urgency. So if you have an app and loyalty system and you're not activating it during storms, you're missing one of the highest intent days of the year.
