Restaurant delivery has a speed problem and a physics problem.
Every day, millions of meals travel across cities in 4,000-pound cars to drop off food that weighs less than five.
“We’re using a private taxi for your burrito,” said Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, CEO and co-founder of drone company Zipline. “There has to be a better way.”
Cliffton dove into how Zipline is transforming food delivery on stage at the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference Monday in Las Vegas.
But long before the company started delivering restaurant meals, it was solving a life-changing problem: how to get blood to a patient in a remote Rwandan hospital in under 30 minutes.
Zipline’s origin story began in 2016, when it signed its first contract to deliver blood transfusions to remote hospitals in Rwanda.
Today, it operates in eight countries, serving more than 5,000 hospitals and health facilities. Its fleet has logged more than 125 million commercial autonomous miles.
Zipline delivers from Walmart, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, and others over the Dallas area.
“It’s as though Jesus is delivering blood from the sky,” one Rwandan doctor told him.
The U.S. turn
Now it’s also reshaping how Americans get their meals.
Walmart was the first major partner in 2021, integrating Zipline’s drones into supercenter operations across Dallas. It’s now adding a new location roughly every week in Dallas, with restaurant partners ranging from Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle and Wendy’s, routinely serving thousands of customers in the Dallas–Fort Worth area.
Once the drone arrives at the marked location, it hovers before lowering a tethered droid to the ground containing the order, with delivery time at about 10 minutes.
Cliffton said Zipline continues to grow rapidly. They even paused advertising this summer yet kept growing 15 to 20 percent weekly, driven by TikTok virality, with some videos topping 10 million views.
“People film their deliveries,” he said. “A robot landing dinner in your yard makes pretty good content.”
He noted that the novelty fades fast, and that’s the point.
“Humans go from sci-fi amazement to entitlement in about seven days,” Rinaudo joked.
Average customers now place three to eight orders per month.
He frames it as this generation’s space race, a new kind of moonshot, and says demand for convenience isn’t going anywhere.
Greg Flynn’s operator lens
Greg Flynn, founder, chairman and CEO of Flynn Group, the largest restaurant franchise operator in the world, then joined in for a fireside chat. He leads a portfolio of nearly 3,000 restaurants across brands such as Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Applebee’s and Panera Bread.
Greg Flynn, right, founder and CEO of Flynn Group, discussed how he sees drones as the future of restaurant delivery alongside Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, CEO of Zipline.
“There’s a lot to like about delivery in its current form,” Flynn said, “but it could be so much better.”
“Delivery often takes longer than you expect. It always costs more than you expect. And when something goes wrong, it’s either our fault or DoorDash’s, for example, but either way, the guest blames us.”
Flynn was one of the first entrepreneurs and restaurant leaders to believe in Zipline, Cliffton said.
“I think that there will be drones routinely flying the skies of all major areas where people live,” said Flynn.
Flynn Group announced in April 2024 it would begin using Zipline’s delivery system from select Panera units in Seattle.
Zipline is among a handful of companies including Wing, Flytrex, DroneUp and Matternet making waves in the meal delivery space with its autonomous drone technology. Ten years from now, drone delivery will be “utterly ubiquitous,” said Flynn.
Related: New FAA Rule Could Supercharge Drone Delivery
Younger consumers, Flynn said, already live in a world defined by on-demand convenience.
“They’re living on apps, ordering for every meal. Once this becomes easier and cheaper, it’ll change behavior completely.”
Related: Drones Set to Transform Restaurant Delivery
Flynn pointed to how quickly habits shift in hospitality.
“It’s the same story we’ve seen with the drive-thru. What started as convenience became the norm. You adapt or fall behind.”
The Restaurant Finance & Development Conference, presented by the Restaurant Finance Monitor, Franchise Times and Food On Demand, runs through November 12 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
