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Amazon Is Getting the Hell Out of the Restaurant Delivery Business

With Amazon Restaurants shutting down, where will you possibly order pad Thai from now?

Amazon Restaurants homepage
Amazon Restaurants
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Jaya Saxena is a Correspondent at Eater.com, and the series editor of Best American Food Writing. She explores wide ranging topics like labor, identity, and food culture.

The way businesses like Amazon become so rich is by doing everything in their power to block their workers from unionizing recognizing holes in the marketplace. Which is why in 2015, Amazon decided to get into the restaurant delivery game , a desert only served by Seamless, Grubhub, Caviar, Uber Eats, and Delivery.com, among many others. Amazon Restaurants gave Prime members the ability to order delivery, but after four years, that arm of the company will be shutting down on June 24.

Amazon will also be shuttering Daily Dish, a delivery service specifically focused on bringing lunch to the workplace, on June 14. “Many of the small number of employees affected by this decision have already found new roles at Amazon, and others will be provided personalized support to find a new role within, or outside of, the company,” a spokesperson said in a statement. Geekwire points out that there was a job posting for an Amazon Restaurants Software Development Engineer as recently as February. “We are looking for an experienced software development engineer to help take Amazon Restaurants to the next level,” reads the job description.

Amazon Restaurants was at least partially framed as another perk that came with Amazon Prime membership. However, as the delivery app wars continue to heat up (and draw legal scrutiny), Amazon’s delivery service failed to compete. Not that they’re completely out of the running: Amazon also just invested in British food delivery company Deliveroo and Prime members can still have their Whole Foods groceries delivered to them through Prime Now, as well as other groceries through AmazonFresh.