Cash Rules Everything in Pittsburgh, but why?

August 1, 2013 8:30 AM

My wife and I are heading to Pittsburgh this weekend and in checking the hours for one of the places we loved during our last visit there noticed they delivery via FedEx. Then I noticed something interesting.

Like all of the non-chain places we visited in Pittsburgh this place is cash-only but will accept a credit card for the FedEx charges (the actual food product has to be paid for with a money order). Is there a reason why restaurants and coffee shops in Pittsburgh are cash only on food products? At first I thought it might have to do with the alcohol laws there (the place in question sells beer to go) but I remember all of the coffee shops we stopped at being cash-only too and that they all offered food as well. Any current or former Pittsburgh want to help me out on this?

posted by playertobenamedlater to Travel & Transportation around Pittsburgh, PA (14 answers total)

I definitely think that the places you have visited are exceptions to the rule. Coffee shops and places with small transactions are cash-only to avoid credit card fees which cut their profits, but I haven't noticed this in Pittsburgh more than anywhere else...
posted by sarahnicolesays at 8:33 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

Pittsburgh still has the small town mentality, and many businesses just don't want to eat the transaction fees and overhead associated with taking credit cards. There's also the matter of fines for taking bad/stolen cards, and needing to eat the costs of anything purchased on a stolen card.

Many of these places are starting to take credit cards, particularly now that the rules surrounding cards allow for minimum transactions.
posted by bfranklin at 8:34 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, it's easier to hide cash.

(I remember when Pittsburgh was super-corrupt.)
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:36 AM on August 1, 2013

Best answer: A lot of it is the credit card fees. Some is the convenience and relative speed; my favorite sandwich shop is cash-only and would get backed up terribly if they had to deal with the "Slide your card. No, wait a second. Slide. Yes, hit cancel for credit. Okay, that card didn't work, do you have another? Slide it again."

But also (if you'll indulge a bit of stereotyping), Pittsburgh is a straight-forward city. I give you a product, you give me the money, end of transaction. It just works. No middle man, no worry about the servers being down, no extra charges, no "sign on the line". And everyone here is okay with that, we just carry cash most of the time (which took me a good long while to get used to).
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:46 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

I don't think of this as being a terribly common thing around here, actually. My favorite cheesesteak place (Uncle Sam's, if you're looking) is cash only at all of its locations, but otherwise I can't remember the last time I ran into someplace that was. I'd agree with sarahnicolesays that maybe you've just happened to bump into these places.

Based on your Squirrel Hill tag and the FedEx delivery - are you going to Mineo's? Have a slice for me if you do. Mineo's is the awesomest.
posted by Stacey at 8:46 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

As a further gloss on the explanations above, I expect that the reason why they're accepting cards for the FedEx is that they're giving your CC # to FedEx and FedEx is bearing the credit card fee. For their own goods and services, they require cash to avoid the fee.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:49 AM on August 1, 2013

I don't notice cash-only as very common in Pittsburgh. There's a sandwich place near me and a Pho place in Lawrenceville but other than those, I haven't had a problem with places accepting cards in years and I almost never carry cash with me.
posted by octothorpe at 10:22 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

This was simply strange coincidence on your part. I've lived in Pittsburgh for 10 years, and cash only is not common here. Neither are credit card minimums. I moved to New York City earlier this year and continually run out of cash because I'm not used to encountering cash only or high credit card miniumums.
posted by unannihilated at 10:29 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I think I can understand why you're feeling like everywhere here is cash-only; it seems so rare these days that even coming across a few such places makes it seem like it's a citywide phenomenon - and actually, I tend to carry more cash now than I did before living in Pittsburgh for that reason - but like others have said, I don't think it truly is all that common.

Besides Mineos (man, now I really want to go there tonight) I can think of maybe three other cash-only restaurants that I've encountered in a year of living here; sort of a surprising number, I guess, if you're used to always being able to pay with a card but not all that unusual ( ... is it?).
posted by DingoMutt at 10:33 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

After I posted I thought of somewhere else (Lulu's/Yum Wok) that used to be officially cash-only at lunch, but take credit cards after the lunch rush. So in that case it would seem to argue for the defining factor being speed of transaction during the busiest time of the day.

I think that's even more atypical than being always cash-only, though, as I can't think of anywhere but Lulu's that I've ever seen that particular set of rules. And I noticed sometime last year they now take plastic at lunch, so they must have decided the added sales outweighed the longer lines.
posted by Stacey at 10:38 AM on August 1, 2013

Generally speaking, besides credit card fees, another reason some merchants have a cash-only policy is to illegally avoid charging and/or paying sales tax.
posted by Dansaman at 10:40 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, I thought there might have been some other reason (read: taxes or alcohol related) they were cash only. We went to the recommended Pittsburgh stops (Mineo's, Primanti Bros, Pamela's) and they were all cash only, as was the pizza joint up from Mineo's we mistaken stopped in and the two coffee shops we visited. Just struck us as weird but we may have just had the fortune to hit all of the "cash-only" joints in Squirrel Hill and Shadyside.
posted by playertobenamedlater at 11:38 AM on August 1, 2013

Generally speaking, besides credit card fees, another reason some merchants have a cash-only policy is to illegally avoid charging and/or paying sales tax.

There you go. The claim that paying with cash is faster is a fallacy. Unless every single customer has exact change, the opposite is always the case.
posted by drjimmy11 at 1:31 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I've been living in Pittsburgh for three years, and I don't think it is any more cash-only here than anywhere else. Some local places that do lots of small transactions are cash-only, but that's true anywhere.
posted by sgo at 7:44 AM on August 2, 2013