Pizza Chain Accepting Pesos for Pizza

[voivod]

Jan. 9, 2007 — A Texas-based pizza chain that has many of its stores in Latino neighborhoods announced Monday that it would temporarily allow its customers to pay for its pizza with Mexican pesos at all its stores.

Pizza Patron, which operates 59 stores, is offering its customers the added convenience of paying in both U.S. and Mexican currency. The company says it is giving its patrons the option so that it can compete more with major pizza chains.

"This program has everything to do with selling pizzas and putting ourselves in a more competitive position with the major chains out there that we compete with," Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patrón Inc., told ABC NEWS.

Not About Immigration, All About Business

Pizza Patron (aka Pizza Boss) operates in five states: Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada and Colorado. It already provides its customers with menus both in English and Spanish and requires its employees at the counter to speak both languages.

About 60 percent of its customers are Latino. Pizza Patron restaurants will post the peso exchange rates at cash registers and will only accept paper currency and make all change with U.S. currency.

The chain started the peso program Jan. 6 at its Dallas stores and says it was well received by its core customers. Swad admits the feedback to the program wasn't all positive.

"We did have some reaction over the weekend through the Web site that isn't that favorable and to be honest, really isn't that nice," he said.

Swad said he received e-mails accusing the company of giving power to illegal immigrants.

"What people are attempting to do is link this program to the immigration issues that this county is struggling with. This doesn't really have anything to do with that," he said.

A Growing Trend?

Economists say it's not unique for U.S. businesses to deal with foreign currency. However, these companies usually do it on a small scale and are located within close proximity to a border.

[FORD]

Pepperoni, fresh mushrooms and jalapenos..... not bad. Hope they have some XXX on tap

[seenbad]

I don't see the contraversy. Sounds like good business sense to me. Know your audience, right?

[SactoFan]

It's a private company...they can let people pay with rocks if they want...I doubt that the chief motivation for illegal immigration is to grab a soda and a few slices of pepperoni...

[muffdiver]

But they charge 20 bucks for a burrito.....

[jimmy812]

It's bad enough we got people that can't make change in American money, now they have to factor in an exchange rate???

[billy007]

We used to accept Canadian cash at the motel I used to work at in Maine (well, they probably still do, but I'm not there anymore!), so I don't see this as that big a deal.

[ZeoBandit]

I don't see the big deal with this either. People could pay with Legos if the store allowed it.

[ZeoBandit]

Pizza promotion met with death threats
POSTED: 9:24 p.m. EST, January 11, 2007

DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- A pizza chain has been hit with death threats and hate mail after offering to accept Mexican pesos, becoming another flashpoint in the nation's debate over immigrants.

"This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico," one e-mail read. "Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans," demanded another.

Dallas-based Pizza Patron said it was not trying to inject itself into a larger political debate about illegal immigration when it posted signs this week saying "Aceptamos pesos" -- or "We accept pesos" -- at its 59 stores across Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California. (Watch reasons behind the decision)

Pizza Patron spokesman Andy Gamm said the company was just trying to sell more pizza to its customers, 60 percent of whom are Hispanic.

Wal-Mart, H-E-B supermarkets and other American businesses in towns along the Mexican border accept pesos. And some businesses in New York and Minnesota communities along the northern border accept Canadian dollars.

The difference here is that many of the pizza joints are far from the border, in places like Dallas, more than 400 miles away, and Denver, more than 700 miles away.

"If people would understand that the majority of our customers are Hispanic, then it might make more sense for a company to sell pizza for pesos," Gamm said. "It doesn't make sense in Connecticut. And it doesn't make sense in North Dakota or in Maine. But it makes perfect sense here in Dallas, in Phoenix, in Denver -- areas far from the border that have significant Hispanic populations."

The company said it has received hundreds of e-mails, some supportive, most critical.

While praising the pesos plan as an innovative way to appeal to Hispanics, a partner in the nation's largest Hispanic public relations firm said a backlash was inevitable.

"Right now there's a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric going around that could make them a lightning rod," said Patricia Perez, a partner at Valencia, Perez & Echeveste in Los Angeles, California.

Pizza Patron proclaims on its Web site that "to serve the Hispanic community is our passion." Its restaurants are in mostly Hispanic neighborhoods, and each manager must be bilingual and live nearby, said Pizza Patron founder Antonio Swad, who is part-Italian, part-Lebanese.

The take-home menus are in both English and Spanish, and the dishes include the La Mexicana pizza, with spicy chorizo sausage; La Barbacoa pizza, topped with spicy pulled pork; and chicken wings flavored with lime, peppers and garlic con queso.

Many Pizza Patron customers have pesos "sitting in their sock drawers or in their wallets," Gamm said. "We're talking small amounts, where it would be inconvenient to stop and exchange on the way back -- maybe 10 or 20 dollars' worth of pesos."

The promotion will run through the end of February and then be re-evaluated, Swad said.

In the first week, payments in pesos have accounted for about 10 percent of business at the five restaurants operated by the corporation, Pizza Patron said. The others are franchised, and the company will not get reports until the end of the week.

The company has set a conversion rate of 12 pesos per dollar, which is slightly higher than the official rate of about 11 pesos per dollar. Any change is given in U.S. currency.

At a Pizza Patron in Dallas, Veronica Verges bought a pizza Wednesday for her son Nathan's fourth birthday. She paid with pesos her father brought home two weeks ago after a trip to see family in Mexico.

She said she is an occasional Pizza Patron customer, but came that day because she could pay with pesos. Her father wasn't going to use them because he had no plans to go back to Mexico anytime soon.

"I would mostly think a restaurant would do this in a border town," she said. "But it got me over here."

[chefcraig]

I don't see the big deal with this either. People could pay with Legos if the store allowed it.

Yup, but you should see how pissed they get when you try to "innocently" unload some arcade tokens on them.

[Wruff_ajax]

Well, it starts with Pizza.
As the hispanic culture grows and grows and grows and grows (and grows) in the U.S. we see now that they can make good use of those pesos they bring up with them by buying goods and services in amerieca with their foreign currency.... A currency that is virtually worthless to our economy.

What happens when they're exchanging pesos for everything else too? This is very bad for america and the economy. They are creating an entire sub-culture that exchanges foreign currency within the United States.
Yeah sure, they could use rocks or pesos for currency here, but what good is that for America?

What is wrong with you people that you cannot see a potential problem in this sort of thing.

And no. I didn't send hate mail, and no I didn't make death threats.
It's just common sense to me that that people accepting pesos for payment in america is really NOT a good thing. Bad trend. Bad for the U.S. dollar. Bad for all of us.
Is a bad thing. Wake up.

[FORD]

Funny how the northern border towns accepting Canadian money never got this kind of attention.... (except from me when they tried to slip Hoser quarters into my change. The vending machines won't take em anymore, so they're worthless)

From what I can see of this company, they're also employing a lot of young Hispanic people, and I don't know how that can be a bad thing. Whether they take dollars, pesos, monopoly money, or food stamps for their pizza really isn't that big of a deal, as long as the company pays their employees and their taxes. If they lose money on the exchange rate, they won't be in business very long.

[muffdiver]

We're keepin tabs on you ppl apparently....lol...

[billy007]

Funny how the northern border towns accepting Canadian money never got this kind of attention.... (except from me when they tried to slip Hoser quarters into my change. The vending machines won't take em anymore, so they're worthless)

I never knew vending machines to take Canadian money, that's why we didn't like the coins either!

[LLFHS]

Well, it starts with Pizza.
As the hispanic culture grows and grows and grows and grows (and grows) in the U.S. we see now that they can make good use of those pesos they bring up with them by buying goods and services in amerieca with their foreign currency.... A currency that is virtually worthless to our economy.

What happens when they're exchanging pesos for everything else too? This is very bad for america and the economy. They are creating an entire sub-culture that exchanges foreign currency within the United States.
Yeah sure, they could use rocks or pesos for currency here, but what good is that for America?

What is wrong with you people that you cannot see a potential problem in this sort of thing.

And no. I didn't send hate mail, and no I didn't make death threats.
It's just common sense to me that that people accepting pesos for payment in america is really NOT a good thing. Bad trend. Bad for the U.S. dollar. Bad for all of us.
Is a bad thing. Wake up.

That's the lovely thing about America.....you can run your business the way you fuckin want to.

Congrats on not making death threats. That's progress.