VivirLatino

U.S. pizza chain will accept Mexican pesos

13:36 H | Topics: Business - Marketing - Money

I've written before about how a relatively little-known pizza chain called Pizza Patrón is doing an amazing job catering to Spanish-speaking customers, mainly recent immigrants from Mexico, by tailoring their marketing -- and their menu -- to the tastes of that community. In another smart and surprising move, the chain has announced that they will be accepting Mexican pesos at their stores:

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."

According to the Dallas Morning News, some marketing experts say they don't see the need for this. To me, it's all about communicating inclusion to the customer. It shows that they know something about their customers' lives -- that they go back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. -- that another pizza chain doesn't or doesn't care to know. In my opinion, Pizza Patrón could own the Latino market in its sector if it keeps up this cultural connection. They, unlike other companies, are at least trying to learn something about who they are selling to.

And while we can all guess that someone (possibly in Patrón's home state of Texas) will probably try to raise a stink about the chain accepting non-American currency, this is what the company spokesperson has to say:

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."

Via / WFAA.com and Hispanic Trending

Image: AP

Related

• Benito Juarez gets a new look (Friday, Aug 17 2007)
• Dallas store chain to accept pesos (Tuesday, Jul 17 2007)