Amazon to shut restaurant delivery service in US

Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday it would end its restaurant food delivery service in the US later this month, giving in to intense competition from GrubHub Inc, DoorDash, Uber Technologies' Uber Eats services.

"As of June 24th, we will be discontinuing the Amazon Restaurants business in the US A small fraction of Amazon employees are affected by this decision, and many of those affected have already found new roles at Amazon. Employees will be offered personalized support to find a new role within, or outside of, the company," Amazon said in a statement.

Amazon Restaurants was launched in 2015 in Seattle and was designed to give Prime members a way to order meals, apart from products and groceries, through the e-commerce giant. The service was expanded to more than 20 US cities and later to London.

However, the company ended the program in London last November.

Leadership of the unit has changed hands in recent years, overseen at one point by the executive also in charge of Amazon's ticketing business and at another point by a different executive running its two-hour grocery delivery service, Prime Now, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

However, Amazon still has ambitions in food delivery. In May, the company took a stake in British online food delivery company Deliveroo, leading a $575 million fundraising.

Shares of GrubHub were up 6 percent on the news in afternoon trading. Geekwire first reported the news.

Reuters