Posted on 01/07/2007 2:36:11 PM PST by kellynla
Pizza lovers who don't happen to have American currency on them can still purchase their favorite pies with Mexican pesos, thanks to a Texas-based restaurant chain.
Starting this week, Pizza Patrón outlets, which caters heavily to Mexicans, will offer the alternative form of payment.
"We're trying to reach out to our core customer," Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patrón Inc., told the Dallas Morning News.
"We know they come back [from Mexico] and have pesos left over. We want to be a convenient place for them to spend their pesos."
It's believed no other food chain operating so far from the Mexican border is allowing customers to pay with foreign currency.
Swad said he's prepared to take criticism from American consumers possibly offended by the bypassing of greenbacks.
"We're not really interested in finding the safest spot on the board," he told the paper. "We know the purity of our intention, and we're willing to take the heat when there is heat."
About 60 percent of Pizza Patrón customers and 45 percent of its franchisees are Hispanic.
"If you're not in a border town, I don't see the functional benefit," said Juan Faura, president and chief executive of Cultura, a Dallas-based marketing and advertising firm. "I would see it as a move by the chain to communicate unequivocally to the Hispanic market that they are for them."
"I don't see any other reason for it," Faura added.
Andrew Gamm, Pizza Patrón's director of brand development, said the company has already seen customers spending "a couple hundred pesos" without any advertisement of the service during a test in a Mesquite location.
Founded in 1986, Pizza Patrón has gone from four locations to 59 and more than 40 under development across the American Southwest.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
This is not new.
It was interesting spending US dollars in the Yukon and getting more back in Canadian change than what was tendered.
The law enforcement folks ought to harness this and sell pizzas too. When they arrive, give them their pizza and a road trip back to the country they ILLEGALLY CAME FROM!
Currency is fungible, dollars,euros,pesos,escudos,or whatever.
If my customers want to pay in any legal currency fine with me..
Bingo. They are going to rip off the mexicans, and get favorable PR for doing it.
Pizza Hut in Mexico City accepts dollars.
I have all these $3 Clinton dollars.....I think the massage parlor accepts them.
My wife and I were landed immigrants in Canada when we drove down to Amarillo one Christmas to visit my parents. The wife was born in Wisconsin, me in New Mexico.
We were about to leave a drugstore in Amarillo, when a passerby noticed us getting into a car with Ontario plates.
"Welcome to America," this Texas said in a friendly manner.
Not wanting to be churlish, I faked my best Canadian accent, and said, "Thank you very much."
Whatchagonnado?
mmmmmmmmmmushrooms
It's good business. Another smart entreprenuer makes a buck, er, peso.
Sounds like good business practice.
They are free to do what they want to increase their business and hats off to them for being innovative.
I have a Pizza Patron' near my office, I'll have to go try it out.
Many years ago on a trip to Canada we stopped at a border town and the little store where we shopped took both US dollars and Canadian dollars. Prices were listed for both currencies, and it was very convenient.
I was in Mexico for New Years, and I paid in dollars and pesos in the stores and cantinas, depending on what I had. Its common in Mexico.
Well, you were. It was only worth about 18 cents.
Yes other than many people pay by check and plastic of form or another.
That would go to zero for pesos.
Is that low sodium or regular gold bouillon...
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