What Happens When Restaurants Go Cashless (usatoday.com)

There's a new trend starting: restaurants that won't accept cash. USA Today reports: Restaurant owners say ordering is faster from customers who slap down plastic instead of dollars, cutting a few seconds out of the process. But most of the benefits appear to accrue to the restaurants: less time taken counting bills, reduced pilferage, no armored-car fees or fear of stickups. It's a risky strategy. For starters, upscale Millennials -- among the most coveted of diners because of their youth and affluence -- prefer to pay in cash, according to Bankrate.com data. Also, more than a third of Americans between the ages of 18 and 37 do not have a credit card. For customers, patronizing restaurants that don't take cash means one less payment option when they need a quick meal during an all-too-short lunch hour. Plus, it raises questions about whether it discriminates against cardless teens and the poor... A committee in Chicago is weighing Alderman Edward Burke's proposed requirement that merchants accept cash. Massachusetts has had a Discrimination Against Cash Buyers rule on the books since 1978... Lana Swartz, co-editor of the book Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff, says "One of the cornerstones of American capitalism is everyone's money is equal."
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports: Many business owners would rather be cashless. Cash actually costs money -- banks charge fees for cash deposits and to handle coins... And counting and checking cash and preparing it for deposit takes up time a manager could spend with staff or customers... Millions of consumers use little or no cash. In a survey released last month by the financial services company Capital One, only 21 percent of 2,000 people questioned said cash was their most common way to pay for things. But going cashless isn't a slam-dunk. Some customers who want to use cash point to a statement on paper money: "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private." However, the Federal Reserve says on its website that private companies can make their own policies about cash unless there is a state law saying otherwise.
One Houston restauranteur changed his mind about going cashless, saying "You can't compete if you think you're going to create a whole set of rules and expect people to follow them." One Chicago restauranteur admits that "it has generated the most negative pushback of anything we've ever done," estimating revenue fell 2% just from angry cash customers who never returned.

But he persisted because his eight restaurants had experienced six burglaries, break-ins or armed robberies over the last eight years -- and got "dozens and dozens" of counterfeit bills from customers -- while by going cashless, he no longer has to pay for bank fees and armored car pickups.

Comments

Lower prices right?

[svendsen]

So the cashless restaurants are going to have lower prices and not charge like 12 bucks for a mixed drink?

Re: Lower prices right?

[ffejie]

Your wanting goods or services are not a debt public or private. They can refuse to sell you something if you don't pay with a credit card, or bitcoin, or acorns, or rare gemstones from some asteroid.

The clause you're citing is if you owe someone money for something. For instance, if we have a contract that says you owe me $10 every time you post something insane on Slashdot. If you offer me 1000 pennies for this, and I say "no, I only take rare gemstones," then you can consider your debt satisfied in the eyes of the law. You offered legal currency, I refused.

Cashless = No tips

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, when I don't pay cash, I literally never leave a tip. When the machine ask if I want to leave a tip, I just press Ok on 0.00$ to skip that and go quicker.
So pay your employees a living wage instead a relying on tips.

Re:Cashless = No tips

[Bert64]

You tip *after* you've had the food, so long as you don't return to the same restaurant again you'll be fine.

That said, the whole idea of expected tipping is quite ridiculous and causes all manner of problems.

I travel often for business, i need receipts for my food and i get reimbursed, if you give me a receipt which includes the total amount including the tip i can claim back the tip which means i'm likely to be more generous with it. If i'm paying the tip out of my own pocket i'm going to be more stingy not least of all because i'm not eating out by choice - i'm away from home on business and can't prepare food at home like i normally would.

Not only that but if your working in a restaurant, the restaurant should pay a reasonable wage, not expect you to pay 15% more than the advertised price to pay for the staff. If you need to charge more to pay for the staff then raise prices so the cost is up front, or add a service charge thats displayed on the menu. If you're advertising a price then i'll expect to pay the advertised price.

You shouldn't be tipping staff simply for doing their job, you should tip them for going above and beyond. If they're simply doing their job to the expected standard then you've already covered the cost in the bill. It's even worse when you actually receive poor service and they still expect a tip!

Another thing that annoys me is you're expected to tip the waiters, but what about the chef? If you hd a really good meal, wouldn't you rather reward the chef who cooked it? The guy who slaved away over a hot stove to produce a delicious meal, or should you reward the guy who relayed your order to the chef and then carried the order to you? Some restaurants actually replace the ordering part with a tablet located on the table, so the waiter only has to carry your order to you, i wouldn't be surprised to see that automated by a robot at some point too.

Re:Cashless = No tips

[Bert64]

And because the tip is paid *after* the meal, and certain nationalities are known for not tipping, as soon as the waitress hears an australian accent you get terrible service.

Failing electronic system

[Sigma 7]

I've seen enough stories where the restaurant has a fault with their credit card system, and thus has an extremely long delay in processing them (assuming that they still get processed.)

If there's any major failure, which will happen when an ice storm causes scattered outages across the city, the restaurant has no way to receive income. Either they accept cash, or they don't get the day's income.

I've also went into a fast food restaurant which also had a cash register failure. They still did business using pen-and-paper, taking payments in cash, and thus didn't have to close down. Even if slightly slower or less reliable, it's as if the cashiers knew how to handle the situation.

Re:Failing electronic system

[guruevi]

Even though that has been stated many times, VISA and MC both have clear requirements for merchants during outages and downtime. You should be able to take the card as long as your POS system has power - the transaction will process later, you can call their call-centers by phone to process a purchase, you can write the card number on a special form and then process it later (or remember back when they had those slide-things, they still have those for embossed cards).

The problem is obviously your volume/throughput will suffer if you end up doing that and your employees need training. It's either that or you let your customers walk through with stuff unpaid, if there is a VISA/MC sticker and they don't WANT to process the card, VISA/MC says their customers have the right to treat it just like you wouldn't accept cash and the customers can actually complain to their CC company and they'll get a fine too.

Reasons...

[b0s0z0ku]

Other reasons for this: (1) Classism. "We don't want poor or immigrant customers who don't have a credit card or check card. We cater to millennial hipsters only." Good to know. (2) Bribery. There was an article last year about a major credit card company paying businesses $10,000 to go cashless. Good on Chicago for thinking about regulating this and Massachusetts for actually regulating cashfree businesses out of existence. Nice to see that some jurisdictions actually stand up for their constituents' privacy.

Re:They lose my business

[Misagon]

Where I live, the practice is that if the restaurant has a sign by the door that they accept only credit/debit cards and you still enter and order, then that counts as a "preexisting agreement" that you are supposed to pay with card.

That's legal wrangling for you but does not work with human behaviour. People miss those signs all the time.

If cash were required, I couldn't go there

[RhettLivingston]

I hate it when I get cash because I don't have an easy way to get rid of it. I bank with an online bank and have no means of depositing it. I have no cash in my wallet or coins in my pocket and haven't in ages. If forced to take change for some reason, I just tell the cashier to apply it to the next person's bill.

I've not seen a business that was cash only in years, but if one were, I wouldn't consider patronizing them.

So what's the plan

[nehumanuscrede]

when dinner is finished, you hand your card to the wait staff and it's denied ?

I'm sorry, I don't have another card. Do you take cash ?

I prefer to use cash because every card compromise I've ever had ( including the latest chip cards ) have been wait staff at restaurants who simply copied what they needed from my card.

( They do it with gift cards too so use low denomination varieties so it gets used up in one go )

I don't have these issues with cash.

I worked at a restaurant being targeted

[rsilvergun]

by crooks. Lobby was Open 24 hours. I never did get robbed, but I knew people who had been. The owner of that restaurant? Started closing the lobby only after the police threatened to hold her criminally liable if anyone got hurt. They knew the robberies were happening, but they were sporadic enough that the profits from keeping the lobby open were > what was stolen.

Being cashless is a big plus for the employees at 24 hour restaurants.

Re:They lose my business

[Bert64]

So long as they declare up front what method of payment they accept, then they have no obligation to accept cash.
The fault is yours if you accrue a debt when you know that you'll be unable to repay it.

It does work the other way round, if the restaurant has a mastercard sign on the door and you present a mastercard to pay for the meal but they tell you their card machine is faulty it's not your responsibility to provide cash. I've had that happen a few times with restaurants where they want to take cash (tor tax evasion purposes) so they claim the card machine is faulty... When you point out that's their problem and you're not carrying any cash it usually magically fixes itself.

Funny story

[cyn1c77]

Last time I was at a cash only restaurant, I only had 3 bills in the denominations of $5, $50, and $100 dollars. My bill was $15.

So I try to pay (at the register) with my credit card and they say "cash only". At that point I am excited, because I actually have cash, which I rarely bother to carry. So I pull out the $50 and they would not take it because of fear of counterfeit dollars. They said they won't take any bill higher than $20.

I was like "uh, your sign says 'cash only', it doesn't say 'cash only in bills less than $50'. If you don't take credit cards, you actually have to accept the cash".

Long story short, they let me have my meal for free because they were afraid to lose money by making change with a possible counterfeit $50. I eventually went back later and repaid them because I felt bad, but it highlights the issues that they're facing: Afraid to take cash, afraid to pay the credit card fees.

It also highlights how fucked up the money situation has become in the US. Some places won't take ANY cash. Some places won't take bills over a certain amount. Some places won't take credit cards. And if you are going somewhere new YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT THEY WILL TAKE! You used to be able to just leave the house with a $50 bill and be good to go. Now you have to have a bunch of $20s, your credit card, your ID (in case they check), and maybe your phone to pay with that. Things seem to be getting harder, not easier.