As of  September 10, students are no longer allowed to hand money straight to cafeteria  staff to pay for their food.

Instead, students will be required to keep money in their lunch accounts if they would like to buy from either the cafe or cafeteria.

Last year Chartwells staff noticed how much longer it took to get students through the line due to the fact that cashiers were spending a lot of their time counting out change.

For example, students were handing 20 dollar bills to pay for a dollar bag of chips. The staff was taking too long to give their change back, resulting in long lines and long waits.

“This will keep the lines moving faster and will no longer hold everyone up,” Kevin Gouldner, Director of Food Services, said.

Now, when a student would like to buy something they need to type in their pin number and move along. According to Gouldner, it will take much less time.

Gouldner thinks this will positively impact our school because it has been tested once before at another high school.

He said it works extremely well there and helps to keep everything moving along. He has positive hopes for the new cashless cafe.

However in an unofficial Beacon instagram poll, 73% said they did not like the idea of the cafe and cafeteria going cashless and only 27% said they did.

Junior Ryan Craig said, “This makes things less convenient. It makes me not want to go to the cafe.”

But, senior Ethan Stump said, “I don’t really care because I just put money in my account online.”

Many students noted how they only go to the cafe when they have extra cash on them.

“I don’t really like it because my parents never put money in my account so if I wanted something in the past I would use my own money from my wallet,” Senior Ali Swartz explained.

Gouldner does not think this will lower sales in the cafeteria and cafe and will instead only benefit how it is run.

Time will tell whether or not Chartwells going cashless has a positive or negative impact on our school.