News

Sweetgreen salad restaurant chain doesn't want your 'lettuce'

December 28, 2016

Fast casual restaurant and hipster haunt Sweetgreen will go cashless at its 64 locations in 2017, following a limited year-long test of the policy.

Co-founders Jonathan Neman and Nicolas Jammet, in an interview with Fast Company, offered several reasons for going cashless in the eight markets the company serves, including:

• reduced likelihood of store robbery and improved employee safety;
• savings on cash-in-transit costs;
• hygiene;
• time-savings for managers;
• speed of service (the company told FC employees can carry out five to 15 additional transactions per hour if they do not have to handle money).

The company hopes to push customers to use its in-app ordering and payment system as a way to shorten lunch lines and customer wait times.

However, Bonnie Riggs, a market analyst at NPD Group, told Fast Company that in moving to a cashless system, a restaurant runs the risk of turning away economically disadvantaged customers who do not have credit, debit or prepaid cards.