Online giant Amazon is bringing its speedy and free meal delivery program to Irvine with more than 50 restaurants offering one-hour delivery on everything from poke to pizza.

Update: Amazon backpedals, stating not every zip code in Irvine is available

Irvine and surrounding fringe neighborhoods join 20 cities across the country where the fledgling Amazon Restaurants is available to Prime members, who pay an annual membership fee of $99.

Amazon Restaurants, which launched in fall 2015, is a service within the 2-year-old Prime Now program. The latter offers free, two-hour delivery on goods and charges $7.99 for one-hour delivery. Amazon Restaurants, however, never charges a delivery fee, making it a serious threat to leading industry competitors DoorDash and Postmates.

In Irvine, Prime members can choose from more than 50 restaurants, most of which are in Irvine. A few are in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, including Newport Beach Brewing Co., Mezzet Mediterranean Cuisine (Costa Mesa) and North Shore Poke (Costa Mesa/Huntington Beach).

Irvine is the sixth city in California, and the third this month, to join Amazon Restaurants. Other participating cities are San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego and Los Angeles.

Unlike other meal delivery services, Amazon Prime Now’s program offers customers transparent pricing with no menu markups or hidden service fees for delivery, spokeswoman Amanda Ip said.

“If a customer finds a restaurant item on Prime Now that is priced higher than the regularly priced item on the restaurant’s current online menu within 24 hours of placing the order, Amazon will refund that customer the price of the item,” Amazon guarantees.

For local eateries, the growth of third-party delivery services can be a boon to business.

Jared Jones, owner of Beach Barrel in Newport Beach, said he signed up with Amazon Restaurants because UberEats has doubled his deliveries on weekends. As a result, he stopped doing in-house deliveries, saving him money on labor.

“This whole thing just blew up,” Jones said.

He is betting Amazon, with its delivery experience, can boost orders even more.

Amazon is broadening its meal delivery reach as on-demand services slowly heat up for restaurant meals. Roughly 12 percent of Americans say they have used a third-party delivery service in the past three months, according to a recent survey by market research firm Mintel.

Consumers can order from Amazon Restaurants using the Prime Now app or by visiting primenow.com

11/16 update: On Wednesday, Amazon said it would discount Prime memberships by 20 percent starting Friday at 12 a.m. (Easter) and ending at 11:59 p.m. (Pacific). New members can sign up at www.amazon.com/thegrandtourprime.

Contact the writer: nluna@ocregister.com

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