FOOD

Payment Plans Is the demand for contactless payments during COVID-19 accelerating the hospitality industry’s march toward a cashless future?

By Laura Hayes

@LauraHayesDC

BBQ Bus Smokehouse co-owner Che Ruddell-Tabisola remembers Tuesday, March 17, well. On that day, the Brightwood restaurant welcomed carryout customers for the first time since Mayor Muriel Bowser suspended dine-in service at all D.C. establishments the day before. A woman paid for an $8.75 meal with two five-dollar bills she removed from her bra. “We did the transaction, then I started Googling if you could catch coronavirus from cash,” RuddellTabisola recalls.

Much about the transmission of COVID19 is unknown, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published guidelines, last updated May 27, advising restaurants to use contactless methods of payment when possible. The CDC also explains that, while it’s possible to get COVID-19 by touching your face after coming in contact with a surface or object with the virus on it, especially if you don’t wash your hands, the main form of transmission is still through respiratory droplets.

Ruddell-Tabisola is making the call neighborhood by neighborhood. While the new BBQ Bus location in Brookland doesn’t even have a cash register, continuing to accept cash in Brightwood was obvious. “The majority of our transactions are cash,” Ruddell-Tabisola says. “We have a lot of grandparents in Ward 4.”

His company could save $2,100 a year by eliminating cash, mostly from shaving off payroll expenses. Employees wouldn’t need to stay late counting money. But a couple thousand dollars isn’t incentive enough to alienate the restaurant’s cash-carrying customers, according to Ruddell-Tabisola. “Absolutely, we’re going to continue to take cash,” he says.

Not all restaurant and bar operators are askeenonexchangingcashduringapandemic. Theysaytheiremployeeshavehealthconcerns and wantto limitdirectinteractions with customers. As a result, restaurants and bars are temporarilyorpermanentlyturningtocontactless formsofpayment,acceleratingthemarchtoward acashlessfuturethatdoesn’tincludeeveryone.

One in five adult D.C. residents are credit invisible—a term used to describe 45 million American consumers with no credit score or way of paying with a credit card, according to Capital Area Asset Builders Executive Director Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz. His organization helps local low- and moderate-income residents build wealth and financial independence.

Evendebitcardsaren’tagiven.Accordingto a2017FederalDepositInsuranceCorporation survey,8percentofDistrictresidentsdon’thave checkingorsavingsaccounts.Another21percent mayhave accounts, butare consideredunderbanked because they rely on money orders, check-cashingagencies,andpaydayloans.

Leitmann-SantaCruzdoesn’tthinkcashless businessesaretryingtobeexclusionary,nordoes he discountthe argumentsforgoingcashless thatpredatedCOVID-19,suchasincreasedefficiencyandemployeesafety.“Butitcouldstillbe seenaseconomicsegregation,”hesays,adding thatit’stypicallylow-incomefamilies,peopleof color,andundocumentedimmigrantswhodon’t haveaccesstomainstreamfinancial services.

“Some restaurants will say, ‘That’s not our clientele,’” Leitmann-Santa Cruz says. “But that’s not the corporate citizenship mentality or role they want to be displaying. There’s no onesize-fits-all in a pandemic, but we cannot and should not allow those who have traditionally been underserved and marginalized to become further underserved and marginalized.”

Leitmann-Santa Cruz testified at a February hearing on the D.C. Council’s Cashless Retailers Prohibition Act of 2019. If enacted, it will compel all retail businesses to accept cash. There have been similar movements in neighboring cities—Philadelphia became the first city to ban cashless stores last year. Some companies reversed their cashless policies as a result. Homegrown fast-casual salad chain sweetgreen started accepting cash again in 2019, after being one of the first D.C. businesses to go fully cashless in 2017.

At-Large Councilmember David Grosso introduced the bill with several colleagues. He says he didn’t hear enough opposition at the hearing to make him pull back, even now. The Committee of the Whole was set to mark up the bill before councilmembers shifted their focus to COVID-19 emergency legislation in March.

“This pandemic has hit the most vulnerable among us the hardest,” Grosso says. “We should be working toward building a more equitable city as we reopen after this emergency, not further excluding those who are unbanked or underbanked. Businesses should certainly be taking steps that protect the health and safety of their workers and patrons, but prohibiting cash payments isn’t the only way to do that.”

While awaiting potential regulatory changes, bar and restaurant owners are locked in an emotional game of tug-of-war over how they’ll ask customers to settle their bills—with one side wanting to keep employees and customers safe and the other side looking to be as inclusive as possible.

Lulu’s Winegarden owner Paul Carlson says although he’s always sought to accept all forms of payment, that aim is on hold during the pandemic. According to his tabulations, 99 percent of his customers pay with credit cards. Once his U Street NW restaurant reopens, customers will view the menu, order, and pay using GoTab, a Ballston-based startup.

Customers scan a QR code posted throughout the establishment that will prompt an ordering system to launch in a web browser. “Anyone with a device with internet access can open it without downloading an app,” Carlson says. Payment is processed using whatever method is stored on the device. “We have a young demographic, so it’s likely they have Apple Wallet. Youcanorderandpayinseconds,” he adds.

Red Bear Brewing Co. in NoMa started using a similar contactless method through Arryved, a point of sale system designed for breweries. It’s been useful for takeout and delivery orders, and co-owner Bryan Van Den Oever says they plan to continue using it as phased reopening begins and the brewpub can have walk-in customers.

“Everyone has a smartphone,” he says. “We ask that they download the Arryved app, which they developed just for this situation. They literally start a tab and pay right on their phone. We’ll confirm payment and pour them a beer.” Right now, Van Den Oever says they’re not accepting cash, and wonders if they’d be willing to before a vaccine becomes available. Customers will eventually be able to pay directly with credit cards again.

If Washingtonians want to dine or drink at Lulu’s or Red Bear in the early phases of reopening, it will help to have a smartphone and a data plan. According to the Pew Research Center, 81 percent of Americans had a smartphone in 2019. “All the cool dudes and dudettes creating