Domino's Will Now Deliver Your Pizza Virtually Anywhere

Do you want your pizza delivered to a house? How about with a mouse? In a box? With a fox? Would you eat it in a car? Eat it, eat it, there you are! At the risk of being sued by the Dr. Seuss estate, let's just say you can now have your Domino's pizza delivered here or there. You can have it delivered anywhere. Translation: Domino's has just announced the launch of Pinpoint, a new delivery technology in the United States that will allow the pizza chain to deliver to many more unusual locations. Thank you, Sam-I-Am Domino's.

"Domino's is proud to be the first quick-service restaurant brand in the U.S. to deliver food to customers with the drop of a pin," said Christopher Thomas-Moore, Domino's senior vice president and chief digital officer, in the announcement. Although Domino's Pinpoint Delivery is new to the U.S. market, Nation's Restaurant News notes the company launched a similar technology in Australia and New Zealand, called Domino's Anywhere, in 2017.

Imagine you're in a park, snug in a hammock nestled between two trees, book in hand, when all of a sudden, hunger hits. Now, you could abandon your comfortable setting, pack up your stuff, and trek to the nearest pizza joint. Or you could open the Domino's app. Such is the thinking behind the new Domino's new service, which works using a pin drop system.

To use Pinpoint, customers have to drop a pin on a map within the Domino's app. The pin must be dropped at a safe pickup spot nearby (no highway medians!), and the customer has to confirm the location in the app. Throughout the process, the customer can track the order via the Domino's tracker, locate the delivery driver via GPS, and receive text alerts about their order's arrival.

Once the driver is close, there are two ways for the delivery person to identify the customer. Domino's Pinpoint Delivery asks the customer to provide a physical description to help the driver identify them in a public setting. I'm the girl wearing the 10-gallon hat and a hazmat suit, for example. Alternatively, the app also allows you to activate a "spotlight" on the tracker page, which displays a full Domino's logo on your phone screen. Hold it up like you're requesting a Bad Bunny song from a DJ who's ignoring you, and the driver should be able to spot you.

We had a few questions about the logistics of this expanded delivery operation. Danielle Bulger, Public Relations Manager at Domino's, clarified to The Takeout via email that the pickup spot must be somewhere the delivery driver can safely pull their car over, and where the customer can approach the car to receive it. In other words, the Domino's delivery driver can meet you in the parking lot next to the beach; don't insist that they meet you all the way at the water's edge next to your newly constructed sand castle.

Just how far-flung can these delivery locations be? Bulger explained that when a customer uses Pinpoint Delivery on the Domino's app, location tracking uses the position of the customer's phone to find the nearest Domino's restaurant. This means you must be within the usual delivery range of a Domino's to use the service. On the bright side, this also means the new service does not incur any extra fees, and Bulger notes that both customers and delivery drivers have responded well to the new tech.

"We've received positive feedback from both customers and delivery drivers so far," wrote Bulger. "The delivery drivers have been happy with the notifications customers receive as well, as one of them lets customers know they have four minutes to meet their driver and retrieve their order at the designated pickup spot." As with Uber, Lyft, or any other app service, there's no reason to leave your driver waiting. Especially when they have a piping-hot pizza for you.