Checks and balances: GNG Pizza tests cashless concept

Nation's Restaurant News, March 3, 1997 by Alan Liddle

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A Domino's Pizza franchisee in this market is testing cashless commerce through a system that enables customers to order and pay for food using special telephones and debit cards linked to the user's checking account.

Six-unit GNG Pizza has accepted electronic payment for delivery orders since December. All but one of GNG's units are processing a handful of such orders weekly, a company source indicated. GNG's cash-free capabilities are the result of a joint-marketing agreement with Columbia-based DART Inc., an electronic bill payment service. For a $7.95 monthly fee, DART provides "thousands" of consumers in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina with proprietary debit cards and telephones sporting magnetic-card readers and special-function buttons.

Domino's customers with DART phones need only press a special "hot button" to have their calls routed to the nearest delivery store. Workers at the restaurants write down authorization numbers issued by DART before taking the orders and write up credit-card-style slips that must be signed by customers when they receive their food. The signed slips are returned to DART for processing.

DART users can add a gratuity before totaling and signing the credit slip that arrives with their Domino's order. Delivery drivers dealing with DART customers "have noticed that their tips are going up," a GNG staffer reported.