It was just a matter of time. Shanghai now has its first drive-thru restaurant -- excuse us, "auto shuttle restaurant," as Xinhua likes to call it. The "cylinder-shaped three-storey building" is owned by the Shanghai Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Co. Ltd., so we're guessing it's a drive-thru KFC. The English version of the story doesn't say where the restaurant is -- details, details -- but the Chinese version tells us it's on Kongjiang Lu, which appears to be a pretty long street in Yangpu District. They didn't offer us a cross-street. (Any intrepid Shanghaiist readers want to hunt this down for us? We would, but we don't have a car. Nor do we eat KFC.)

The drive-thru is a new concept in China, thus Xinhua takes some time to explain it for its readers:

Apart from the indoor restaurant, it especially designed a fastfood getting driveway for those who have no time to eat out of cars.

The drivers will drive withershins, ordering the food at the entrance and getting them at the exit. The whole process only takes about two minutes.

That sounds about right. Wait ... withershins?!? Has Shanghaiist finally found another rabid fan of Arthur Quiller-Couch!!! "My love then and his bonny ship turn’d withershins about" -- sing along now!