What Businesses Would You Like to See (or See More of) in the Metro Area? (Pittsburgh: for sale, real estate)

[Craziaskowboi]

I think there's a big carniceria in Beechview. It opened a couple of years ago.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Creperies.

Have you been to Crepes Parisiennes in Oakland? I like that a lot. http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/23/27044...nes-Pittsburgh. Bring cash. No CCs.

[Craziaskowboi]

Next time I'm in town I'll check it out. I hope they serve nutella-banana crepes...or is that Gnutella-banana crepes?

[Jrn14]

I think there is a severe lack of mirror mazes in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by jay5835

Bring cash. No CCs.

Pittsburgh is the only place I've been where so many places are cash only. Why is that?

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by raubre

To be honest, I'm not really sure since I don't know much of what else is out there (as far as exotic food.) Just something more different I guess.

Cuban, Russian maybe?

I did find this link to an older thread...

Exotic restaurants in Pgh?

The Black Bean opened up in Oakland recently. I'm not sure how good or authentically Cuban it is though, since I haven't been there.

The Black Bean - Oakland - Pittsburgh | Urbanspoon

[Aqua Teen Carl]

Ethnic restaurants, Total Wine (which will never ever happen), a quality indoor shooting range not ran by jerks, a place where I can get a good friggin burrito.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Pittsburgh is the only place I've been where so many places are cash only. Why is that?

Credit cards take probably 3-4% bite out of the cost. The less expensive the average transaction is, the MORE that percentage will be. So it's either raise the prices or don't take cards. Card transaction costs generally include a percentage plus a flat fee per transaction. That fee can be perhaps negotiated by a big chain with lots of small transactions, like McDonald's. (Wasn't so long ago that these places took only cash; how soon we forget!) For a small outfit though that fee can be around 20 cents, maybe more. So if you charge $2.00, they're paying around 13% or so of that just for the credit card processing. Ouch.

Some of that is old info, I suppose. Just for current data I checked the Costco processing rates because they're easy to find: Merchant Credit Card Processing - Elavon and Costco They in fact have a new rate just for low average transaction at 1.37% and 12 cents per. But most of us use reward cards which process at a higher rate (which isn't noted). And even at that rate, charging the same 2 bucks would cost the merchant 7.37% or almost 15 cents of the $2.00. Charging $6.00 still means well over 3%.

I've been a lot of places and if there's some kind of glut of cash-only here vs elsewhere I haven't seen it. The little convenience shop downtown that I walk into almost every day is cash only. If they took cards on all those tiny little transactions they'd go bankrupt, or the prices would have to go up significantly. There's a balance in there somewhere. In some situations they might gain more profit from taking cards and raising prices, but in many they would have a net decrease by taking them.

And there are a very few places that have decided they are so popular we don't have to take cards. Here, Pamela's comes to mind off the top of my head, although again they generally do still have a pretty low transaction average. Imagine the complaints at the price increases though if they decided to take cards! More egregious example was a few years ago when I was in Tennessee at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The town next to the park, as with many of the most popular national parks, is a fairly touristy place (Gatlinburg, TN, in this case). One very popular and pretty good breakfast place not only takes no cards, they do so complete with an ATM in their lobby that generates extra money for them. It was good, but geez, what a rip!

Sometimes the cash only can be temporary until the business is better established. I've seen that happen as well. Some may even change their mind if they know about new lower rate options like the one I mentioned above. In general I'll even bother to pay cash when they take cards if it's at a small one-off shop that I care about and I have the cash in my wallet. Above $20 or so I usually still pay with the card.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Pittsburgh is the only place I've been where so many places are cash only. Why is that?

They get to charge you less that way. Something like crepes have a crepe-thin profit margin in the first place, so their not taking credit cards is win-win, unless, like me the first time I went there, you don't happen to have cash in your pocket. Thankfully, there's a branch of my bank at the end of the block.

[Scientist Mom]

Discount dry cleaners
More Brewpubs
Soup & salad bar restaurants (i.e. Souper Salads; Salad Express)
McDonald's with indoor playgrounds.
A bounce place (i.e. Bounce U) closer than Warrendale - or at least more convenient to the East side of town.