Key Takeaways
- Popeyes and Chipotle will help DoorDash test drone deliveries in Northern California after the FAA approved commercial operations in July.
- Early tests averaged under five minutes per delivery, though DoorDash will decide whether orders fly based on weather, distance, traffic, and package size.
- The test comes as Popeyes confronts a 6.5% same-store sales decline, expands self-order kiosks, and navigates a major franchisee’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Popeyes has spent 2026 trying to get customers back through its doors. Now it's testing another option: flying the chicken directly to them.
According to The Los Angeles Times, DoorDash announced that the chicken chain will be among the first restaurant chains to test its in-house delivery drones in California, following Federal Aviation Administration approval for commercial operations in July. The aircraft can reportedly get an order to a customer in less than five minutes on average during early testing, potentially turning Popeyes delivery into a trip through the sky rather than through traffic.
The program is expected to begin in Northern California, with Popeyes and Chipotle among the restaurant partners. DoorDash says roughly 80% of its typical restaurant orders are small and light enough to be safely carried by its drones.
Not every order will take flight: the company will determine whether to deploy a drone based on weather conditions, distance, traffic, and other factors.
The drones are the latest piece of DoorDash's expanding autonomous delivery network, which already includes sidewalk robots and technology from companies including Wing, Flytrex, Serve Robotics and Coco Robotics. DoorDash Labs has also developed its own four-wheeled delivery robot.
For DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang, who oversees the company's robotics efforts, the goal is adding capacity as demand keeps climbing.
"As we add more and more categories, the consumer demand for delivery is just going to keep growing," Tang told Bloomberg. "So it's about adding more capacity to the fleet so we can meet that demand."
For Popeyes, the test arrives during a year when technology and restaurant operations have increasingly collided.
Parent company Restaurant Brands International has been expanding self-order kiosks across the Popeyes system, with CEO Josh Kobza previously saying the technology could reduce wait times, improve order accuracy and "enhance the employee experience."
The chain has also been fighting much bigger problems behind the counter. Popeyes reported a 6.5% same-store sales decline earlier this year, its weakest quarterly showing in roughly two decades, as executives pushed a turnaround centered on stronger operations, menu simplification and value.
Meanwhile, major franchisee Sailormen Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection with roughly $130 million in debt. Dozens of its Popeyes restaurants in Florida and Georgia subsequently closed or changed hands, and the bankruptcy is still producing legal fallout.
