Sweetgreen Puts The Kibosh On Cash

Those looking to spend a little green at popular salad chain Sweetgreen may be disappointed over the coming year.

Sweetgreen announced it will no longer accept cash in its 64 store locations, with a goal to go full cashless in 2017.

“Cash has become such a smaller piece of our tender,” Sweetgreen cofounder Nicolas Jammet told Fast Company. “When we opened nine years ago, it was 40 percent. Now, all stores are between 10 percent and 15 percent.”

Jammet and Jonathan Neman, Sweetgreen’s other cofounder, explained that there are many reasons the chain will soon go cashless, including that cash-free stores reduce the chance of robbery and can avoid having the expense of transferring cash via armored vehicles.

Not having to deal with cash in stores will also free up managers from having to count cash and instead focus on other responsibilities. The executives also expect that removing cash will also speed up transactions. According to Jammet, employees can perform 5 to 15 percent more transaction each hour when they are not having to handle cash.

Above all, Neman and Jammet believe that going cashless will help the company utilize new technologies to make its locations more efficient and personal.

“We’re working on ASAP ordering,” Neman explained. “So it will be much more like Uber, where it says you can have your salad in six minutes or eight minutes.”

The company said its mobile app usage has grown 95 percent over the last year and that a move away from cash may help to continue to drive that growth.