Thread: Dallas based food chain to accept Mexican pesos

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 047f5.html


Dallas-based food chain to accept Mexican pesos

10:11 AM CST on Saturday, January 6, 2007
By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS / The Dallas Morning News

Starting Monday, patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos.

Restaurant experts and economists said they knew of no other food chain with locations so far from the Mexican border offering such a service.

"We're trying to reach out to our core customer," Antonio Swad, president of Pizza Patrón Inc., said Friday.

"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."

While U.S. restaurant chains have stepped up their marketing to Latino consumers and incorporated Latin flavors in the menu, it's unusual to see that outreach extend to the cash register.

"I think it's a very interesting idea," said Ron Paul, president of Technomic Inc., a Chicago-based restaurant market research firm. "They are catering to that audience."

But Mr. Paul said he did not see other chains rushing to emulate the program, in part because of bookkeeping headaches.

Usefulness
Others mentioned that the growing use of credit cards and the desire to hang on to the pesos for a return trip to Mexico would dilute the usefulness of the program.

"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.

He and others saw the program more as a marketing effort than a badly needed service.

"I would see it as a move by the chain to communicate unequivocally to the Hispanic market that they are for them," Mr. Faura said.

"I don't see any other reason for it."

But Andrew Gamm, Pizza Patrón's director of brand development, said the company tested the idea in a Mesquite store recently and had customers spend "a couple hundred pesos," without any advertisement of the service.

Bills only
Under the program – which is set to end in late February but may be extended – the chain's 59 stores will take peso bills only, not coins.

Using cards listing the conversion calculations, cashiers will enter the figure in U.S. dollars into the cash register and give the change in U.S. currency.

Mr. Swad said some franchisees have made arrangements with their banks to handle the currency.

All other franchisees can send the pesos to the corporate headquarters, which will go to a third party to handle the conversion.

Mr. Gamm said the company set its exchange rate at 12 pesos per dollar for the duration of the program. As of Friday's trading, 10.94 pesos were worth $1, according to Bloomberg News.

Mr. Gamm said the difference would cover the cost of getting the pesos converted to dollars.

Mr. Swad said he's prepared to take heat from American consumers who might be offended by the bypassing of greenbacks.

"We're not really interested in finding the safest spot on the board," Mr. Swad said.

About 60 percent of Pizza Patrón customers and 45 percent of the franchisees are Latino.

"We know the purity of our intention, and we're willing to take the heat when there is heat."

E-mail krobinson@dallasnews.com

I guess they don't need our American dollars!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=53662 -



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THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Pizza chain: We don't need no stinkin' dollars
Mexican pesos to be accepted currency at American eateries

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Posted: January 7, 2007
4:33 p.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com


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.

(Story continues below)


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.



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This is from Mr. Swad's website, www.pizzapatron.com

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Our Values
Our values are well-defined in our mission statement, “Service to community. Commitment to value.” These few words represent everything Pizza Patrón is about.

To serve the Hispanic community is our passion. We want to provide great food at an exceptional value to every neighborhood we can. Our stores are clean, bright and cheerful. They are an asset to the neighborhood. We conduct business in an honest and professional way. Our store managers live in the very same area as the Pizza Patrón store they work in. We make great food and sell it at the lowest possible price.

Families throughout our trade area get to enjoy the pleasure of having someone else cook for them more often because of our commitment to legitimate value. We want to be part of the Hispanic community, not just sell to it.

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So it is clear what market he is catering to, the hispanics. I guess next he'll be accepting the guarani from Paraguay, the bolivar from Venezuela, the quetzal from Guatemala, the balboa from Panama, and let us not forget the euro from Spain. Terrible and sickening business move. Mr. Swad is very un-American.

To serve the Hispanic community is our passion.

Well my passion is to not keep hispanic businesses in business anymore so I don't shop there!

I've never heard of them. I guess that's how big they are. Of course, I am not Hispanic.