Cash is no longer king.
A growing number of restaurants across the country — like test locations for Starbucks and Shake Shack and the entire Sweetgreen, Dos Toros and Tender Greens chains — are no longer accepting cash.
It’s all plastic all the time.
The stores believe not dealing with cash helps move the line of customers faster.
Most people pay for their meals with a credit card anyway, the chains argue. Plus, counting the cash at the end of the day is a waste of time.
But the war on cash has sparked a backlash.
State lawmakers, a civil rights group, the National Retail Federation and a company servicing ATMs are all pushing back against the trend, claiming that refusing the greenback — on which the US Treasury writes “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private” — is simply un-American.
“I think Americans ought to have a right to pay with cash,” New York state Assemblyman Richard Gottfried told The Post. The Manhattan lawmaker circulated a memo on Tuesday to his colleagues proposing legislation requiring New York businesses to accept cash.
