Local eateries are now just a tap away for Iowa City residents.

Iowa City is joining the list of 35 cities around the country that can use OrderUp, a mobile food ordering and delivery service, to bring convenience and accessibility to residents. The app launched today in the area.

“It was determined that [we] would come to Iowa City for a variety of reasons,” said Adam Weeks, the general manager of OrderUp. “The youth and the vibrancy of Iowa City just makes it a perfect market for us to launch OrderUp. The big college, the vibrant community, and an energetic downtown area just makes it a good fit.”

OrderUp was founded in 2009, with headquarters in Baltimore, and it allows customers to order local food through an app or online.

Renee Beck, the director of public relations for OrderUp, said the app will generally be focused on the area near the University of Iowa campus, but the company hopes to expand its network in the future.

“Our initial zone will be the University of Iowa and within about two to three miles of the Pedestrian Mall, but as demand grows, we plan to grow as well,” she said.

Weeks said the new service will not only benefit the restaurants involved but also Iowa City residents.

“If someone is stuck in their apartment or dorm or is at home with their kids on a school night, they can still get the food that they like to have in the restaurant but at home,” he said. “We have restaurants that you could never before get delivered, like Old Chicago, Micky’s, Hamburg Inn, and even Yotopia. It allows the restaurants to get more transactions out of the same people throughout the month and year.”

Weeks said some of the restaurants on the platform will be available at all hours, and others will not, depending on the delivery methods, location, and time of day.

Jeff Harvey, one of the managers of Pizza Pit, 214 E. Market St., said the main reason they decided to partner with OrderUp is to reach out to the community and the UI students.

“The reason we’re doing it is to reach out and get our product out there and show how good our product is,” he said. “But beside that, just to reach out to the kids and people out there. With OrderUp, you can just go through it right online, get it done, and it’s there. It just makes it easier for the people. It’s a win-win for both of us.”

Beck said the process of using the service to order food is fairly simple.

To order, customers log online or on the app and find the restaurants nearby, place their order, and the restaurant’s delivery team or OrderUp’s fleet of drivers bring the order to their door.

“Because we work with driver partners, we’re able to deliver from the restaurants that have never offered delivery,” Beck said.

Wesley Ward, the owner of High Ground Café, 301 E. Market St., used one word to describe why he decided to join the list of restaurants working with OrderUp — “convenience.”

“We don’t have to worry about any extra vehicles or anything like that, no added software or really any added system to how to take delivery orders other than just cook up the order, make it, and then someone picks it up — so we’re pretty simple and convenient,” he said.

UI freshman Marni Wax said she’s excited about the service, because it will create accessibility to more restaurants.

“It will make multitasking easier — it’s helpful to be able to eat wherever I am while still getting food from the restaurant that I want. It makes a lot of the restaurants downtown much more accessible that normally wouldn’t be able to deliver.”