Teriyaki Madness started drone delivery through Zipline on Thursday, October 15, from its shop at 3400 North Interstate 35 in Denton, Texas. Customers order in the Zipline app, a Platform 2 aircraft picks the bowl up, holds up to 300 feet (91 meters) over the address and lowers it on a tether, and the chain says most orders arrive in under five minutes.
The Denver-based franchise, which counts more than 200 shops in more than 40 states, says the service will spread “across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and Houston later this year,” and after Denton to “additional shops across the Lone Star State.”
Its own location finder lists 24 Texas cities with a Teriyaki Madness. One of them, Denton, is in the Metroplex.
The Denton Shop Sits 0.86 Miles From Zipline’s Rayzor Ranch Walmart
Zipline has flown from the Walmart Supercenter at 2750 West University Drive in Denton since March 26, its 20th Dallas-Fort Worth site by its count. The Teriyaki Madness shop is 0.86 miles (1.38 kilometers) away in the same Rayzor Ranch development, inside the 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) radius Zipline quoted at launch.
Community Impact reported in March that the Walmart site had about eight drones assigned to it and room for 20, carried up to 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) per order, and charged nothing for delivery at the start. Zipline’s community engagement lead, Zach Hill, told the outlet the free period was unlikely to last.
Neither company has said which site serves the teriyaki shop. The announcement went out through Teriyaki Madness’s PR agency on Thursday, names no hub and no service radius, and as of Sunday Zipline’s own newsroom has nothing on the deal. Its newest post is still the October 9 Austin launch.
Jodi Boyce, the chain’s chief marketing officer, supplied the quote: “Zipline has more flight experience than anyone out there.” Emily Snyder, Zipline’s vice president of restaurant sales, said the company brings customers the food they are craving the fastest way possible. The release repeats Zipline’s standing numbers, more than 140 million autonomous miles since 2014 and a delivery somewhere in the world every 20 seconds.
Teriyaki Madness Has Eight Houston-Area Shops Where Zipline Already Flies
The chain’s finder lists eight Houston-area shops: Houston, Cypress, Humble, Kingwood, Conroe, Fulshear, Magnolia and Mont Belvieu. Zipline opened its Houston network in Cypress on April 29, and one of its aircraft landed under its parachute on Highway 6 there on September 4.
The FAA’s draft environmental assessment for Zipline’s Texas expansion, which DroneXL reported in September, would allow 65 Chargers and 65,000 deliveries a day across the Houston metro. The chain also has a shop in Round Rock, where Zipline started deliveries on October 9 for the first 5,000 residents who signed up.
Restaurants have been the filler between Zipline’s Walmart hubs since Chipotle’s Rowlett test in August 2025. By April, Zipline said 16 brands were available near Rowlett, Crumbl Cookies, Little Caesars, Popeyes and Hawaiian Bros among them. Wonder’s celebrity-chef kitchens join in January 2027, and Uber Eats is putting Zipline drones inside its app. None of those announcements named a single shop as a Metroplex rollout.
DroneXL’s Take
A franchise chain wrote “Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex” into a release about one shop, and the restaurant trade press ran it as written. The shop sits under a mile from a hub Zipline has run since March, so my guess is the same Rayzor Ranch drones carry the bowls and Zipline added a merchant without building anything. That is the right way to fill a hub, and I have no complaint about the deal itself. The Metroplex line is written for franchise buyers, because there is no second shop to expand to until someone opens one. Houston is the rollout to watch. Eight shops sit around a network Zipline already flies, and the chain says that service comes before the end of the year. If you live near the Rayzor Ranch Walmart, the Zipline app will tell you whether your address is in. Anywhere else in the Metroplex, nothing changed on Thursday.
Sources: Teriyaki Madness release via Restaurant News Release, Fast Casual, Community Impact, Denton Record-Chronicle, Zipline, April 20, 2026
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
