A growing handful of New York restaurants are determined not to handle cash despite the Big Apple’s ban on rejecting hard currency – and so they’re turning to a latest twist on old technology.
Side Dish has learned that Slutty Vegan, an Atlanta-based vegan convenience food chain with locations in Harlem and Brooklyn, is one in every of the restaurants that’s installing “reverse ATMs” that spit out prepaid cards to get across the “Cash-22” dilemma “.
One service provider – appropriately named ReverseATM – rents ATMs that accept cash bills in exchange for an “open loop” debit card whose balance could be used anywhere Visa and MasterCard are accepted.
An executive at ReverseATM – whose customers range from fast food outlets to large sports venues like Madison Square Garden – told Side Dish that customers are never charged for debit cards.
Restaurateur Stratis Morfogen, founding father of the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, says he’s currently in talks to introduce ReverseATM machines to his dining establishments – especially in the East Village, which is open all night on weekends.
“Cash is dirty. We discovered about it in the course of the pandemic. It is usually not protected for our employees to have cash registers crammed with cash,” said Morfogen. “If you’re carrying cash, you are a goal for criminals, and I do not feel comfortable with my staff carrying cash.”
Nonetheless, the New York City Council enacted a ban on cashless payments in November 2020, at the peak of the COVID pandemic, out of concern for lots of of hundreds of New Yorkers who don’t have bank accounts or just prefer to pay in cash.
A crackdown soon followed – imposition of fines on firms that evaded the law, including the upscale Van Leeuwen ice cream parlor and the favored Bushwick Roberta’s pizzeria.
It also helped generate interest in the reverse ATM idea.
Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole, who says her business is now valued at $100 million, said the chance and hassle of cash has taken its toll. Cole began operations in September 2018 with one food truck in Atlanta with just three items on the menu: burgers, pies and fries.
“We were making between $15,000 and $20,000 a day, with lines lasting five to six hours. Sometimes we had to have collateral because we were coping with a lot cash,” Cole said. “One time we got out of the automobile for 2 minutes and someone jumped in and stole the automobile.”
As well as to criminals, sticky employees and the chance of IRS audits, Cole said she wants to avoid spreading germs with money that’s literally dirty.
“It was the safest and most honorable way because every little thing is documented,” Cole said. “It took the stress off me. All the things went through the system.”