Is Cash Passé?

When it comes to taking payments, more and more businesses are going exclusively digital. But not everyone is buying into the trend.

- Robert Klara

IN his nearly 30 years in the restaurant business, having done every job from waiter to regional director, Michael Ryan has learned a good deal about running a profitable house. His operational savvy helped make a success of legendary New York City names like Shaw’s Crab House and Blue Water Grill. Meanwhile, his watchful eye took note of many liabilities: the time it took to count the register drawers at night, for example, or the fivers and ten spots that would sometimes disappear into employees’ pockets as they worked behind the bar.

Which is why both locations of his latest concept, Filipino taqueria Flip Sigi, do not accept cash.

Before the restaurant adopted e-payments exclusively, “the manager was spending 20 hours a week counting cash, going to the bank and signing off on everybody’s [drawer],” Ryan says. If an employee’s count came up short, they’d be held to account for the shortage. That, Ryan says, “builds up animosity—and that takes its toll.” Today, with no cash in sight, Ryan’s manager can concentrate solely on running the restaurant, and endless cash-outs are yesterday’s problem. “We close at 11 and we’re out by 11:15,” Ryan says.

Though the cashless movement is largely coastal and urban—and confined, for now, to restaurants and takeout places—a growing number of businesses in America’s major cities are turning a cold shoulder to greenbacks.