As of Jan. 11, 2022, Sodexo stopped accepting cash payments at Acansa Dining Hall and their accompanying retail outlets. This includes on-campus locations such as Chick-fil-a, Starbucks, campus stores and more. The one exception to this rule is when large student groups visit campus, where special accommodations will be provided. 

Haylie Knapp, an on-campus Starbucks barista, stated that she believed most customers were accepting of the change. 

“I’ve had very few complaints about us going cashless, I did have a few (customers) at the beginning that didn’t know,” Knapp said.

To combat this, Sodexo provided employees with gift cards that were to be used in place of cash transactions. This lasted for a week starting on Jan. 11, where customers were also informed about the change.

Some employees, such as Sahana Adhiknri who works at the campus store in the student union, believe Sodexo’s change to cashless is rooted in an attempt to combat COVID-19.. With less physical money exchange, there would be less of a chance for either a customer or employee to become infected.

Others believe the reason for the change was to reduce the overall work for employees.

“I think it was too much hassle,” said Andrea Smith, who works at the campus store located in the Quads. “(Sodexo) wasn’t getting enough cash transactions to deal with the hassle of it.”

For many student workers, going cashless has not impacted their jobs. They reported that not many people used cash to begin with; instead, most customers use either Flex Dollars or credit/debit cards. 

According to Smith, the only people who used cash regularly were A-State employees. She reported that there wasn’t any difficulty with these customers when making purchases. 

Sodexo representatives declined to comment on the change.

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