“We’ve done this for many, many years, but this is one of the first using our marketplace after our certification,” said Beth Flippo, CEO of DEXA, a FAA Part 135 certified drone logistics company formerly known as Drone Express. “We’re hoping that other retailers and other people that want to deliver things come to us.”
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Delivery is available 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, July 31 through Saturday, Aug. 2 within a one-mile radius of the restaurant at 1222 E. Stroop Road. They do have plans to extend hours and distance in the future.
“We deliver somewhere between 75-80,000 deliveries a year,” said Jim Dunn, who founded TJ Chumps in 2002 with Terry Brill. “We have a partnership with DoorDash and they’ve done great for us, but we know that the future of the delivery business is going to be with drones.”
Dunn recalled reading the newspaper about two years ago and seeing an article about DEXA and thinking it would be perfect for them to use. He had his own drone, so he was aware of the capabilities.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
“About 25 percent of our business is delivery,” Dunn said. “We were doing our own delivery for many years.”
How it works
Customers interested in ordering TJ Chumps to be delivered via drone should download the DEXA NOW app, an online marketplace similar to DoorDash or Instacart.
“This is free for people to try,” Flippo said. “They have to pay for the food, but the delivery fee is included.”
TJ Chumps is offering a limited menu for drone delivery due to the weight limit and the size of the box.
“We understand that it’s still an experiment at this point and the boxes that we’re using are not ideal for every item..., but it’s just a matter of time before some of those problems are overcome,” Dunn said. “That’s why we’re partnering with DEXA. They’re a local company. We’re a local company. We’re both in Dayton and we can work out the kinks.”
Each drone carries up to 5 pounds and can complete four deliveries in one hour. If an order is heavier than that, they’ll send multiple drones. DEXA plans to have three drones at the restaurant.
“Our drone flies at 40 mph,” Flippo said. “It flies at 400 feet, so unless it’s coming to your property you don’t see it. You don’t hear it. We then lower down to around 10 feet off the ground and use a winch to lower your food the rest of the way.”
The drones DEXA uses are fully autonomous — meaning the drone flies itself. Flippo said they have one pilot on-site who watches the aircraft to make sure it’s flying and then a visual observer who’s monitoring the airspace.
“There’s no traffic. There’s no downtime. You know exactly when that drone is getting to you with your food,” Flippo said. “It’s just going to revolutionize how we get our things.”
The future is drone delivery
“I think what you’re going to find is people are just going to order because they want to see the drone deliver their food, but our hope is that maybe some of these customers really haven’t tried us before and we may pick up more customers just because of that,” Dunn said.
He plans to focus on drone delivery over the next few months at the Kettering restaurant and then start to expand.
“With our five stores... we can easily serve all of Dayton,” Dunn said. “I think drone delivery will probably get to the point where we might just have one location that we can use to deliver to all the markets around Dayton that we serve right now.”
The current drones DEXA uses is the fifth iteration of this particular aircraft. They have another model coming out soon that can carry up to 20 pounds.
DEXA became certified as a FAA Part 135 Air Carrier in April after about five years. Their aircraft was also recently certified as “airworthy” and added to the S1 list for the Department of Transportation.
“It’s been such a long ride, but now that the regulations are behind us it’s just growth from here,” Flippo said.
MORE DETAILS
TJ Chumps is donating all proceeds from this first test-run of DEXA deliveries to Freedom Whiskey Co., an organization that provides year-round support to veteran charities.
10% of all pickup and traditional delivery orders placed on the restaurant’s app those three days will also go to the organization.
TJ Chumps has several other locations in the Dayton region including 559 S. Main St. in Englewood, 1100 E. Dayton-Yellow Springs Road in Fairborn, 7050 Executive Blvd. in Huber Heights and 12 E. Linden Ave. in Miamisburg. For more information, visit tjchumps.com.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
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