While most retailers were knashing their teeth Friday after a Canada-wide Rogers network failure left them unable to process any kind of electronic payment, several North Shore businesses got around the system snafu the old-fashioned way – allowing their customers to come back and pay later on the honour system.
The locally-owned coffee shop opens at 6 a.m., which is when baristas first noticed the electronic payment system was down, said owner Robin Delany. Delany, who has three coffee shops on the North Shore and one in downtown Vancouver, said the decision to go with IOUs on Friday is really just an extension of what he’d normally do if a regular customer forgot their wallet.
Almost all came back later Friday or over the weekend to pay back the cash, he said. “People weren’t looking to take advantage of us.”