In search of the perfect delivery, some restaurants look to the skies

Drones can cut delivery times down to just a few minutes. | Restaurant Business image with AI

When Dave’s Hot Chicken decided to test delivering its food by drone, Chief Technology Officer Leon Davoyan first wanted to set a benchmark. 

He got in his car and drove the delivery route, in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Northridge, to see how it would compare to a drone. From point A to B, the drive took about 15 minutes on average. He did it half a dozen times, just to be sure.

Then it was time to launch the drone, manufactured and operated by a company called Matternet. From the time its propellers started spinning to when the food was dropped at its destination, just one minute and 15 seconds had passed. Davoyan was amazed.

“The name of the game with food is for it to get to where it needs to go hot and fresh,” he said. “So imagine if food only took a minute and a half to come to your house. It’s as if you walked up to the front counter.”

Dave’s is one of a handful of restaurant brands eyeing drone delivery as they look to evolve their delivery business beyond cars and drivers. Drones offer a compelling alternative: Their ability to soar above traffic means they can travel longer distances, faster. They can also reach locations that don’t have a fixed address or are inaccessible by cars, like parks or hiking trails.

The skies opened to commercial drones, on a very limited basis, in 2016, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) laid out a strict framework for operating them. Today, drones are commonly used for short-range purposes like mapping, home inspections and photography. 

In 2024, commercial drones logged 1.6 million flight hours in the U.S., a 35% increase from the year before, according to Drone Industry Insights. And some of the largest companies in the world are pursuing drone delivery, including ecommerce giants Amazon and Walmart as well as restaurant delivery services like DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.

But the technology has a long way to go before it can become a viable alternative to cars.

“I would say we’re probably in the top of the second inning” of drone delivery adoption, said Damon Lercel, an assistant professor in the unmanned aerial systems program at Purdue University. One big reason: Existing FAA rules do not allow drones to be flown beyond the pilot’s line of sight, which severely limits where and how far they can go. 

That could change soon, as the agency is in the process of developing a new set of guidelines for commercial drones. The proposed Rule 108 would allow drones to fly beyond where pilots can see them, among other changes. The FAA is currently gathering public comment on the rule, which could go into effect by the end of this year or early next.

“The lack of that type of regulation has really held the industry back from being able to expand at scale,” Lercel said. “It’s going to cause the drone industry to explode.”

A Matternet drone takes off from a landing station. | Photo courtesy of Matternet

Coming in hot

Among the many potential benefits of drone delivery, Dave’s Hot Chicken is most excited by the speed. Being able to deliver food to consumers almost as fresh as if they got it in the restaurant is a “gamechanger,” Davoyan said.

“We are now so much more bullish that the right way to do it isn’t via [autonomous vehicles], because those guys have to sit through traffic and all that stuff,” he said. “It’s to fly the food over.”

Dave’s is so confident, in fact, that going forward, it will only offer delivery via drones and sidewalk robots on its mobile app and website. Customers will still be able to get traditional delivery through third-party delivery apps.

“When we have robots doing it, at least you don’t have the issue of, hey, I think somebody got into my food or, hey, the delivery driver that showed up was smelling funny,” Davoyan said. “Robots don’t smell funny. They don’t deliver in their pajamas.”

Dave’s has not yet begun its drone delivery program, outside of a one-day test with Matternet to see how it would work. It will start the official pilot this summer, with the goal of expanding it to other stores in California and then to every location where it is able to fly food. 

Before it starts, Dave’s wants to ensure that the process is as seamless as possible for employees. It’s working with Matternet to install one of the company’s stylish landing stations outside the restaurant, so that staff simply have to load the food into the station. Matternet’s technology then takes care of actually attaching it to the drone, determining where it needs to go and getting it there.

“I don’t want to have to figure out, well, why did it come back? Where is it going? Do I have to babysit it? Do I have to have someone monitor it?” Davoyan said. “For this to work, I need to put food in a doodad and then the doodad needs to take care of it.”

The “doodad” also needs to be able to house enough drones to keep up with demand. During a lunch rush, for instance, Dave’s may get 30 delivery orders an hour. Matternet has agreed to start with a fleet of five drones, with the goal of always having one available for the job.

Dave’s and Matternet are ironing out other logistical questions, like how to fulfill orders that exceed the current 4-pound weight limit, and who will handle daily required pre-flight checks. 

“All those things we’ve figured out in theory, and now we’re gonna put it into test and find out where we land,” Davoyan said. “This is a big partnership for us, because we’re figuring out what drone delivery means for restaurants, not just for Dave’s.”

Chipotle began testing drone delivery last year. | Photo courtesy of Chipotle Mexican Grill

Flying burritos

A few states over in Texas, Chipotle Mexican Grill has been figuring out what drone delivery means for burritos. 

In the fall, the chain began testing the service at a restaurant in Rowlett, outside of Dallas, with a company called Zipline. The drones currently cover a 2.5-mile radius and can travel at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour, allowing the store to complete deliveries in minutes. Eventually, they’ll ramp up to as far as 8 miles, with a four- to five-minute delivery time as the target, said Curt Garner, the chain’s chief strategy and technology officer.

For the initial test, the drones are launching from a flatbed truck in the restaurant’s parking lot. Customers can order through the Zipline app—a marketplace similar to DoorDash or Uber Eats—and it’s prepared by the kitchen like any other order. Then an employee brings the meal outside and loads it into the drone.

The restaurant has completed well over 1,000 deliveries since the test began, and saw a big surge during ice storms in January, when roads were unusable. 

“It was kind of like when people started trying delivery for the first time during COVID—it wasn’t something that they really considered before,” Garner said. “They became aware of it and the convenience of it. And we saw an uptick after that.”

Zipline’s drones travel about 300 or 400 feet in the air, a zone that has been carved out for commercial drone use in the Dallas area. When the drone arrives at its destination, it lowers a smaller capsule from its belly down to the ground, where the customer can retrieve their order. Both the drone and the capsule are outfitted with multiple propellers to prevent them from swaying in the wind. 

Zipline’s drones are autonomous, with pilots monitoring them from a control center who can step in if necessary. (The company is one of several, along with Matternet, that were granted an exemption from the FAA’s line-of-sight rules.)

So far, the drones have not run into any trouble during Chipotle’s test. And feedback from customers has been “extremely strong,” Garner said—with the caveat that they self-selected for drone delivery by downloading the Zipline app. 

“The drones are extraordinarily reliable,” Garner said. “They’re not going to get caught in traffic. Their quote time for delivery is very, very accurate.” 

And, he added, customers like that they don’t feel the pressure to tip. 

The brand wants to continue expanding the test, with one important upgrade: A launchpad that bolts onto the side of the restaurant, allowing employees to load the drone without having to go outside. This will make things easier on them when it’s raining or the restaurant is busy.

“Although our crews have not complained about that, it’s something that we want to fix before we go to a larger scale,” Garner said. “Otherwise, it’s one of those things where the guest loves it, the crew loves it, financially, it works. So we’re excited to push forward.”

Wonder is testing drone delivery in New Jersey. | Photo courtesy of Wonder

Expanding access

Food hall/delivery startup Wonder was attracted to drone delivery because it fits into the company’s goal of making food more accessible to consumers. The company, which also owns Grubhub, is already heavily invested in delivery, and offers a wide selection of cuisine types and meal kits in an effort to provide a one-stop shop for meals.

With drones, it believes it can expand that access even further.

“Think about a scenario, you’re taking a walk in the park, and you’re thirsty, and you’d like some Coke, and you’d like a shawarma. You don’t have the ability to get that hot, right?” said PJ Poykayil, SVP of customer delivery operations at Wonder. “With drones, and with the pin being put in, you will have that ability to get the food dropped to you.”

Wonder is in the early stages of a 90-day drone delivery test in Green Brook, New Jersey, in partnership with Grubhub and drone company Dexa. It’s serving a 2.5-mile radius, with delivery times averaging seven to eight minutes over the first two weeks. 

Customers can opt in to drone delivery in the Wonder app. Once the meal is ready, an employee brings it out to the parking lot and hands it to a Dexa operator, who loads the drone and sends it on its way. 

Wonder is hoping to learn a couple of things from the test. First of all, how much demand is there for drone delivery? That will be key in bringing down the costs of the service. 

It will also study how customers are liking the experience, and whether food quality improves due to faster delivery times. And it will keep tabs on how the broader community reacts to drone delivery. Poykayil noted that it already has buy-in from the local fire and police departments and the mayor’s office. 

Once it has proven that the service can scale, Wonder plans to bring it to more of its 100-plus locations. It would also like to expand its delivery radius significantly, to 10 miles, increase the drones’ payload to 15 or 20 pounds, and extend the service past sundown. (That’s possible now, but it is choosing to fly in daylight only for the moment.) 

“That’s when you truly unlock,” Poykayil said, “and we hope to get there in the near future.” 

Barriers to launch

While some drone delivery pilots are taking flight with conviction, others were apparently short-lived or have yet to get started. 

Mendocino Farms, which announced that it would be adding drone delivery to several California locations in 2023, said it is not currently using the technology, though it declined to explain why. 

El Pollo Loco and Sweetgreen did not respond to questions about their drone delivery tests, announced in 2021 and 2023, respectively. Jet’s Pizza, which unveiled plans to offer drone delivery in Detroit last April, said it is still working through “normal logistics,” but expects to launch in the next couple of months.

It’s not clear why some of these efforts have not fully caught on, but the companies are clearly in no hurry to talk about it. And it is true that drone delivery faces a number of potential complications beyond just regulatory red tape. 

As outlined above, there are operational kinks to work out, as well as limitations in flight distance and payload. There is also a question of whether enough customers will want to use drone delivery to offset the costs.

It’s an expensive business, requiring sophisticated hardware and software and an always-on support network. Though many delivery drones are automated at some level, humans are still needed in many cases to load, service and monitor them, even if only from afar.

In most of the areas where Matternet operates, customers pay a fee of $7 to $10 for drone delivery to help cover these costs, said founder and CEO Andreas Raptopoulos. That is in the ballpark of what they might pay for car-based delivery.

“We’re really pushing hard to reduce our cost so we can make this the most compelling, easy option for a customer to adopt,” Raptopoulos said.

There is also the matter of safety, which came to the fore recently when an Amazon drone crashed into an apartment building in Texas. No injuries were reported, but the incident highlighted ongoing concerns about drones operating so close to people’s homes. 

“Safety is a concern, because we all understand in aviation that if there’s one incident or accident, it’s not good for all of us,” said Lercel, the Purdue professor. “I feel good about where the industry is on their approach to safety. That doesn’t mean we still don’t have work to do.”

Raptopoulos said that Matternet’s drones will continue to be monitored by human operators for the foreseeable future to ensure safety. “In aviation, there’s still the culture of, a human is responsible,” he said.

Still, Matternet’s system is almost entirely automated, and it is rare that a human is needed to step in. In 50,000 Matternet flights over cities, it has never happened, Raptopoulos said. The company says it is the only drone delivery service in the world with an FAA Type Certificate, which means it has met all of the agency’s qualifications for safety and airworthiness.

Despite these concerns, restaurants experimenting with drones believe they could ultimately solve a lot of the issues associated with other forms of delivery, at a time when demand for the service continues to grow. 

“The idea that you can get there in five minutes, you can deliver without having an address or do any of the mapping technologies, makes me believe that this would be a powerful mode of delivery,” Garner said. 

Davoyan of Dave’s Hot Chicken was even more adamant. 

“It is the future of food delivery,” he said.