Disney just built a hovering Star Wars food truck droid that serves (overpriced) drinks
Imagineering teamed with Jon Favreau on a floating food-cart droid inspired by The Mandalorian and Grogu. It puts on a show based on what you order, and it could debut at Disneyland by the end of the year.
Imagine sitting in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, and instead of walking to a counter for a drink, a droid floats over to you, hovering above the ground, and serves it up with a little show. Disney just revealed it’s building exactly that.
And of the futuristic tech Disney is working on, this one might be the closest to actually happening.
What it is
Here’s the rundown on this floating bartender.
Walt Disney Imagineering has built a hovering food-truck droid, a robot drink cart that floats above the pavement with no wheels and no track. It moves around completely untethered, navigating the park on its own using low-altitude propulsion and sensors that help it avoid obstacles and people.
The design is inspired by a food truck seen in The Mandalorian and Grogu. To build it, Imagineering teamed up directly with director Jon Favreau, the Star Wars and Marvel filmmaker who’s been deeply involved in Disney’s recent Star Wars projects.
This was revealed in a Bloomberg report from inside Imagineering’s research labs.
The coolest part: it reacts to your order
This isn’t just a vending machine that floats. It’s designed to perform.
According to Imagineering’s Kyle Laughlin, the droid “puts on a show” based on what you order. So the experience changes depending on what you ask for, turning a simple drink run into a little piece of entertainment.
And Disney sees this as bigger than just beverages. “I think that what we’re going to learn is how to show and sell products, and if it works, we’ll continue to look at new ways,” Laughlin said. He noted it “doesn’t even have to be a drink,” floating the idea of the droid selling small merchandise, like a toy, down the road.
How it’s different from the droids already there
If you’ve been to Galaxy’s Edge recently, you might be thinking, wait, aren’t there already droids? Yes, but this is a different beast.
The droids currently roaming Galaxy’s Edge are the BDX droids, those little two-legged robots that walk around on mechanical legs and interact with guests. They’re built for personality and atmosphere, waddling and beeping their way through the land.
The new food-cart droid is a different class entirely. Instead of walking, it hovers, using advanced stabilization tech to float steadily above the ground while carrying actual products. One walks and waves; the other flies and serves. They’re solving different problems.
When you might see it
Here’s why this one’s exciting: it could be real soon.
Disney plans to show the hovering droid cart at D23, the big Disney fan event, this August. After that, Imagineering is eyeing a possible debut at Disneyland by the end of 2026, if the testing goes well.
There’s no confirmed date yet, and no timeline for Walt Disney World, so nothing’s locked in. But compared to some of Disney’s longer-term tech projects, a public showing in just a couple months and a possible park debut this year makes this one of the nearest-future pieces of the bunch.
So keep an eye on D23 in August. If the floating droid shows up the way Disney’s planning, the days of walking to a counter for your Galaxy’s Edge drink might be numbered. The future of Star Wars snacking is hovering right toward us, and it’s bringing refreshments.
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Hat Tips:
Bloomberg (June 26, 2026), Samantha reporting, which broke the story, verified for the hovering food-cart droid, the low-altitude propulsion and object-avoidance, the Mandalorian and Grogu inspiration, the Jon Favreau collaboration, and the “puts on a show” and “doesn’t even have to be a drink” quotes
Fantasyland News and WDW News Today (June 26, 2026), verified for the distinction from the walking BDX droids, the D23 August showcase plan, the possible end-of-2026 Disneyland debut, the merchandise-selling concept, and no confirmed Walt Disney World timeline