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 ...
I see no problem here either...
I've used dollars to pay for stuff in many a foreign country. Dollars are accepted all over Mexico. What's the problem if someone here wants to do the same with a peso?
Are you telling me all that gold I'm hoarding is worthless?
I'm sure the exchange rate he sets up is heavily weighted in his favor.
All those illegals he's is catering too must add much to his bottom line.
I could care less too.
LOL! I would but I already sent it to this guy in Nigeria to help him get exit papers so he can immigrate with his million-dollar inheritance.
I have about 1,000 Pesos, I guess that is a couple of dollars American!!!!
We have a couple of communities in Pittsburgh that are predominately Irish. My buddy owns a restaurant there. Maybe I should tell him that his restaurant offer to accept The Irish Punt and pences........... Euros?
;-)
Big deal. It'll all be the "Amero" soon enough anyway.
Or fivr finder washers.
Any firm is free to define what is acceptable as payment for their goods - wampum, seashells, large round boulders, you name it. "Legal Tender" just means that US currency is OK to use for the settlement of a debt, public or private.
It might not be enough for a Pizza, but you could tip the driver with it! LOL
Actually an earlier poster was right on the mark- these guys are killing 3 birds- creating a way for people to get rid of (at least temporarily) unwanted currency, making a nice profit on the exchange rate (they're giving 12 pesos to the dollar, higher than the going rate), and advertising as pro-Hispanic.
Currencies are established in a country for specific reasons, as are currency exchange facilities. Once we begin intermingling currencies, not only does the value of the dollar decline as foreign currencies are accepted across the nation, it also means that the merchant who accepts foreign currency can give you change in foreign currency (what's good for the goose is good for the gander). If merchants begin accepting pesos, why not Japanese yen, Euros, pounds, rubles, rupies? Over time, this dilutes the dollar to the point of insignificance. We already have a citizenry that cannot make change for a dollar without either a cash register or a calculator, how much more will we exacerbate the situation by them having to calculate the exchange rate between dollars and pesos, dollars and Euros, etc., etc., etc.?? IMO, this is just another step in the Hispanification of America.
Hah hah hah!
Funny!
I was a forest ranger in Alaska and I would drive down the Alcan every year to visit my family in the lower 48, and I'd spend a lot of time in the Yukon and northern BC camping and hking and trekking, and I got such a kick out of the Canadian accents, "La Batt's Blue Label is good beer, 'ey? Liard's a fine park, 'ey? Watson Lake's pretty, 'ey?"
Along with their "Oat and aboat in the hoase" changing of the "ow" sound, I always enjoyed listening to them talk.
One BC'er told me that the Maritime provinces accents, especially Newfies, were really, really distinct, but I never had the pleaseure of talking to any Canadian from there.
Ed
Y'know, people always write that sound as "'eh," but it sounds more like a truncated "Hey" then "Heh," so I have always written it as it sounds-- ''ey."
Ed
You can spend US dollars almost anywhere in Canada where they might deal with US tourists. Gas stations, restaurants, shops, etc. You'd generally get a much better exchange rate at a currency exchange, though, as these businesses need to make points on the deal to cover their transactions costs.
When I worked in Seward, Alaska, a women got off of one of the tour boats and asked me (I was in uniform, USFS) if the locals took American currency!
Another ranger I know said someone off a boat and visiting Seward asked her what the elevation of the town was! (Seward is at sea-level.)
Tourists are goofy sometimes. I used to live in North Idaho and was cross-country skiing Tubb's Hill one day (a pretty city park in Cd'A) and these two people dressed in business suits, a man and a woman, came struggling and walking up the trail through two foot of snow!
The lady was wearing high heels, and I just stared at them, then asked them why they're walking through snow dressed in business suits:
"Oh, we're visiting from California"!
I almost wanted to ask them if they thought the laws of thermodynamics were suspended for visitors from California!
Ed
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