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Yorkshire’s first cashless restaurant chain

The Cat’s Pyjamas is set to become the first cashless chain of restaurants in Yorkshire.

The Indian street food and craft beer brand, which has four restaurants and recently opened a takeaway on New Briggate, is the first in the area to take card-only payments.

The family-owned business said the decision to go cashless comes after a spate of robberies targeting the pubs and bars in Leeds and after one of their employees was mugged.

With more than 100 employees across sites at New Briggate, Eastgate, Headingley, Harrogate and York, manager, Alison White, said they were making the move to protect their staff.

She said: ’Sadly one of our employees was attacked outside the Headingley restaurant. It has been reported to the police and they are dealing with it but it makes me want to do all we can to protect our staff.

’There has been a speight of robberies in Leeds targeting small businesses such as Mexican restaurant, El Marchador, which is across the road from our new takeaway and was broken into recently for cash.

’Hospitality staff are particularly vulnerable to break-ins and robberies when they are on their way to deposit money in the bank.

‘Now that one of our own employees has been targeted, we believe the simplest way we can safeguard our employees is to stop them having to deal with cash. So, we have taken the decision to only accept card payments across the whole chain from next week.’

She added: ’A couple of bars in Leeds have gone cashless but not any restaurant chains as far as I am aware. We believe we are the first in Yorkshire.

‘We haven’t taken this decision lightly. We asked customers whether they are happy for us to go cashless and 75% said yes in a social media poll of nearly 300 people.

’Not accepting cash will also cut average service time which can only be a good thing for our customers.

‘We will still allow cash tips – as well as card tips - because we don’t want to reduce the income of our hard-working staff but all food and drinks will be by card-only payment.’

‘Hopefully, this will protect our employees from further attacks and mean we can all sleep easier at night.’

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by The Cat's Pyjamas .