Thursday, February 23, 2017

Sweetgreen to go cashless at Bethesda Row

Sweetgreen will go cashless at Bethesda Row on March 8. All transactions will be made via their iPhone app or credit card, and cash will no longer be accepted.

The salad chain says that the move will save employees an average of 2 hours in cash counting time, speed up service, reduce armored car emissions and paper waste (as well as the risk of being robbed), and help the restaurant to provide custom offerings via their app. They say less than 10% of their customers use cash to make purchases.

Sweetgreen is located at 4831 Bethesda Avenue.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The argument I've always heard about cashless-only payment, including at parking meters, is that a lot of less-wealthy people don't have credit cards. Doesn't seem very progressive of a company like Sweetgreen to take that entire audience and pitch them outside, does it?

Anonymous said...

idk maybe you shouldn't be poor and then we won't have to worry

Anonymous said...

Are poor people buying 15 dollar salads?

RM said...

This data might help you. Far more people use debit cards that credit cards. Sweet green will accept a debit card, which is available to everyone with a bank account. I truly don't think Sweet Green is harming lower income people.

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/payment-method-statistics-1276.php

Anonymous said...

@8:25 thats how they got poor in the first place

Anonymous said...

If only 10% of their customers use cash, how will it save them 2 hours (assuming per day?)?

I can't imagine that even if 100% used cash, how it takes 2 hours to count a few stacks of bills and some coins. Back when I worked at both Baskin Robbins and at Bradley Drugs, I don't recall spending anywhere near that amount of time counting out the day.

Anonymous said...

@10:29 Sounds like their employees are extremely inefficient.. or the company doesn't want to invest in cash-counting machines like banks have.

Anonymous said...

Jettie's in Chevy Chase does this too. Notice how half the Yelp reviews complain they don't take cash:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/jetties-washington-3

I'm not sure it's a good decision to not take cash. If that's how people remember your store, is that really worth it?

A better way to do it if they want to cut down on cash transactions would be to let people order at a kiosk and pay at the kiosk using a card, or walk up to a human to pay for that order by cash. That will deter people from using cash, while still not foregoing business from customers who don't want to use cards.

For example, a Bethesda teen may be going to Sweetgreen with her friends, and her parents hand her a $20 to buy lunch. I guess no Sweetgreen for her!

Skippy said...

Every Bethesda resident has an iPhone, so probably not a big issue.
They'll use the app.

Anonymous said...

Don't be ridiculous. Not every Bethesda resident has an iPhone.
Some use android phones. ;)
Some don't have smart phones. (I know, it's unimaginable, but its surprisingly true!)

The 2 hours must include the time taking cash and giving change to customers, not only counting out.

They're good as long as they have power, I guess.


Robert Dyer said...

A lot of good points here. Thanks for contributing to a constructive, on-topic conversation in the comments section.

Anonymous said...

I think if you just report facts objectively without adding your own opinions, you'll get more quality comments.

Anonymous said...

"I think if you just report facts objectively without adding your own opinions, you'll get more quality comments."

^This. Something that many, many, many commenters have said in the past.

Anonymous said...

He thinks his opinions ARE facts.

Robert Dyer said...

Nah, that's not true. Many stories with no opinions have nasty comments from our resident paid troll.

Anonymous said...

Stories with no opinions. hahahahaha

Anonymous said...

9:14AM - Please show stories with no opinions.
Links are fine.