Cashless Restaurants – Sweetgreen Taking Cash

By | April 30, 2019
sweetgreen cashless kiosk

Excerpt from Restaurant Business 4/1/2019

Washington, D.C.-based salad chain Sweetgreen will also start accepting cash again at all of its 94 locations by the end of the year following backlash cashless stores have faced for excluding people without credit cards or bank accounts, the company said last week.

‘Going cashless had positive results, but it also had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can only pay with cash.’

—Sweetgreen salad chain
From the Sweetgreen Blog

We’ve made the decision to accept cash in all our restaurants nationwide by the end of 2019.

When we decided to go cashless it was based on our core value of win win win — the customer wins, the community wins, the company wins. We believed there were many advantages that would benefit the sg community, including employee safety — reducing incidents of robbery, sustainability — fewer armored cars and less paper, and efficiency — it would speed up service in our restaurants. If you want to read more about why we decided to go cashless, please read this article we published in 2016. Going cashless had these positive results, but it also had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can only pay with cash.

Ultimately, we have realized that while being cashless has advantages, today it is not the right solution to fulfill our mission. To accomplish our mission, everyone in the community needs to have access to real food.

Author: Staff Writer

Craig Keefner is the editor and author for Kiosk Association and kiosk industry. With over 30 years in the industry and experience in large and small kiosk solutions, Craig is widely considered to be an expert in the field. Major kiosk projects for him include Verizon Bill Pay kiosk and hundreds of others.