The mall food court is coming directly to your door, courtesy of drones
The delivery app DoorDash and the Alphabet-owned drone company Wing are bringing mall food court favorites to select doorsteps as they expand their drone delivery program.
The companies recently announced that they were partnering with GoTo Foods, the parent company behind shopping mall brands like Auntie Anne’s, Jamba, and Schlotzsky’s, to deliver orders by drone to select areas in Frisco, Fort Worth, and Plano, Texas.
It’s DoorDash’s latest push into delivery by air after announcing in March it would launch a drone delivery pilot program with Wing for select Wendy’s items in Christiansburg, Virginia, and also a sign that the company sees more room for growth. DoorDash said it began offering drone delivery for Papa Johns and The Brass Tap during limited hours of operation in parts of Little Elm and Frisco, Texas, in June, and now its partnership with GoTo Foods takes that pilot program further.
“As we continue scaling our drone operations, we remain focused on building a world-class logistics platform that enables partners like Wing to integrate seamlessly into our ecosystem; provides a smooth, reliable delivery experience for merchants; and offers consumers fast and affordable access to brands they love,” DoorDash’s drone program head Harrison Shih said in a statement.
For now, drone delivery is limited to just a 4-mile radius of participating locations, but for those who live in the radius, DoorDash promises delivery within minutes of ordering.
The company has leaned into robotic delivery outside of drones with Coco, a delivery robot it began testing earlier this year in Los Angeles and Chicago. And in May, it bought the British delivery app Deliveroo for $3.9 billion. DoorDash reported more than $3 billion in quarterly revenue in the most recent quarter, up nearly 25% from the same time last year, according to PitchBook data.
For GoTo Foods, the partnership with DoorDash is a chance to take its brand out of the shopping mall and to reinvent it for a new generation at a time when malls are changing. Thanks to drones, food court pretzels could be more easily accessible to “high-growth suburban areas” that are “well beyond traditional mall locations,” the two companies said in a press release.
You used to go to the mall. The mall now comes to you.
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