Wonder plans drone delivery rollout across Texas stores by 2027

Wonder and Zipline said on June 30 that they will bring on-demand drone delivery to Wonder locations across Texas beginning in January 2027, in a rollout tied to more than 100 store openings in the state. Wonder expects the majority of its Texas locations to offer drone delivery by the end of 2027, turning the state into the company’s biggest test of a delivery system built around automation instead of drivers.

The labor change starts inside the store. Wonder said it is redesigning storefronts, kitchens, logistics systems, and ordering technology to support drone operations, and the setup calls for employees to prepare orders and load them into a Zipline Dropbox inside the restaurant before the drone takes over. That removes the roadside handoff that restaurant staff and delivery drivers usually have to coordinate, but it also adds a new packing, staging, and quality-control step to the back of house, along with another system shift leaders and line cooks will need to learn on busy shifts.

Wonder’s own pitch for the model makes the operational pressure clear. The company says meals are cooked to order on site and delivered within 35 minutes, which means drone delivery is being folded into a tightly timed fulfillment process rather than layered onto a loose front-of-house handoff. Wonder’s Texas careers page says it is hiring operations leaders across Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, a sign that the company expects the expansion to bring new coordination work even as it tries to streamline the last mile.

Zipline is using Texas as a proving ground too. In January 2026, the company said it had surpassed 2 million commercial deliveries, raised more than $600 million, and reached a $7.6 billion valuation. It also said it would expand operations to Houston and Phoenix in early 2026, and in April it launched an early-access drone delivery program in Houston limited to the first 5,000 eligible residents. Zipline said 2025 flight volumes on its urban and suburban platform were 50 times the previous year’s level, a pace that helps explain why restaurant brands are treating drone service as a working delivery option rather than a novelty.

Wonder is not starting from zero on drone logistics. The company said it is already testing drone delivery in New Jersey, while Zipline’s newsroom shows earlier food partnerships with Panera Bread and Jet’s Pizza, and Chipotle tested Zipline in 2025. For restaurant workers, the Texas rollout points to a familiar tradeoff: fewer delivery-driver headaches outside the store, more precision work inside it, and a new layer of operational complexity for the crews who keep orders moving.