victoriayhul: Making Fast Money

In the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is the king of local burger chains. Neither Portland nor Boise can boast half as many regional franchises, leaving the vast majority of cheap burger options up to those living on the crannied coasts of Puget Sound. The two titans in this Emerald City battle for fast food-style supremacy are Red Mill Burgers and Dick's Drive-In. Seattleites are notoriously opinionated about which side of the Dick's/Red Mill line you should fall, but we'll be reviewing both here on AHT, starting with Dick's.

The first Dick's appeared in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood in January of 1954. Much of the original structure remains today, with the large, revolving, kitschy "Drive-In Restaurant" sign in the corner of the parking lot beckoning to the hungry masses with a clear promise of the type of food served here. Prices may not exactly mirror the '50s-style architecture, but they're astoundingly inexpensive given today's woeful economic climate: $2.50 gets you the biggest burger on the menu.

That burger is the Dick's Deluxe. Two wafer-thin patties from the MacDonald Meat Co. are griddled until a lovely crust of salt envelopes the beef, then placed on a soft Franz Bakery bun and topped with shredded iceberg lettuce, mayo, mustard, chopped pickles, and gooey American cheese. The mustard comes through strongest of all, followed closely by the surprisingly sweet pickles. It's a nice pair of flavors. The whole affair is smashed flat like a McDonald's hamburger, making for one thoroughly non-photogenic sandwich, but it's definitely a (single) step up in overall quality.

For the true skinflint, Dick's offers the dirt-cheap hamburger for $1.20 and a simple cheeseburger for twenty cents more. At those prices, you can afford to fill an entire sack with burgers and go home with most of your wallet intact. Both are adorned with only a squirt of mustard and a squirt of ketchup, but chances are you won't complain. The burgers may have a tendency to underwhelm, but they are strangely satisfying, even if they're not going to put the closest Five Guys out of business anytime soon.

In a sharp departure from most burger joints of this ilk, Dick's Drive-In hand-cuts its own fries. Unfortunately, they're limp, soggy, and taste like they've been sitting out for hours. Given that the locals lining up at the windows at all hours never seem to order the fries, it's a safe bet that you shouldn't either. Be smart and spend that hard-earned money on more burgers instead.

Dick's burgers are a stupendous value, but don't drive up expecting a life-changing experience. You won't get it. Instead, you'll get a gratifying, unchallenging burger that hits the spot and does so without draining your college fund. As a meat, cheese, and salt-delivery device, it succeeds marvelously.

About the author: Adam Lindsley is a Seattle-based novelist, musician, and the author of the pizza blog, This Is Pizza. As a contributor for both Slice and A Hamburger Today, he is contractually obligated to say he loves pizza and burgers in equal amounts. Which is to say he is a polygamist.

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Tags: AHT reviews, Dick's Drive-In, reviews, Seattle, Washington

Convenience is the general theme that our society has been speeding towards, getting things fast and easy, that’s the way we like to roll. We can see this through the popularity of services like Netflix; instant movies, and iTunes; instant music. Credit cards in essence, are fast money, but not fast enough.

Services for taking payments on your iPhone is relatively new. A company called Square released an app and dongle last May that would allow users to accept credit cards from their iPhone, it has since caught on and many variants including card readers are hitting the streets. Enabling small vendors, artists, even used item hockers, to charge their customers via the seamless instant swipe of plastic.

In the last two days two companies have begun offering credit card reader swipers free to new customers. Intuit Inc. is one of them, makers of the ever popular Tax accounting software. They want to give the little guy a small boost by offering its GoPayment mobile payment service, which will include a free credit card reader and zero monthly service fees, for business owners that sign up by mid-February.

GoPayment is a system that utilizes mobile handsets, like the iPhone, and uses them as a cost-effective method of processing credit transactions. Since its launch almost two years ago GoPayment has enabled small businesses to process $80 million in mobile transactions using a mobile handset and the GoPayment system, and the market is still expecting significant growth in the coming years. GoPayment is compatible with more than 40 handsets and a large range of traditional credit card readers, this includes the popular credit card reader from ROAM Data, which is used with a variety of iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices, making it more accessible for a new start-up business owner to start accepting mobile transactions.

“By offering a free card reader and no monthly service fees, we want to give more small businesses a head start in the New Year by enabling them to take mobile payments without any upfront investment,” said Chris Hylen, general manager of Intuit’s Payment Solutions division. “And this is just the beginning. We’ll introduce new ways all year long to help more small businesses get paid quickly and inexpensively using their favorite mobile devices.”

GoPayment offers a selection of different rates and pricing plans to accommodate any business’s needs. There are no long-term contracts, or any hidden cancellation or setup fees, and one account allows up to 50 users. Their app is called the Intuit GoPayment Credit Card Terminal and is free from iTunes. Below is a brief highlight of the general pricing plans for the service.

For lower or intermittent credit card processing volume:

No monthly service fee for businesses that sign up before mid-February

Discount rates: 2.7 percent for card swiped; 3.7 percent for both key entered and non-qualified transactions; $0.15 per transaction.

For higher credit card processing volume:

$12.95 monthly service fee

Discount rates: 1.7 percent for card swiped; 2.7 percent for key entered; and 3.7 percent for non-qualified transactions, such as corporate cards; $0.30 per transaction.

The second is from App Ninjas, developers of Swipe Credit Card Terminal for iPhone, today have decided to give away the Apple-approved Credit Card Swiper for iPhone 4 and iPod touch hardware free to all new users who sign up by January 15th. Their app that works with the swiper is available on iTunes for 99 cents and is called iSwipe Global Credit Card Terminal.

Their fees are as follows:

1.74% VISA/MasterCard Qualified Discount Rate

2.29% VISA/MasterCard Mid-Qualified Rate

3.79% VISA/MasterCard Non-Qualified Rate

$0.24 per Transaction

$24.95 per month (Includes Authorize.Net Fee)

“Providing iPhone 4 and iPod touch users with a swipe accessory allows any mobile merchant to quickly process transactions, saving them money and time,” said John Waldron, CEO of App Ninjas. “Swipe’s features help manage credit card transactions with virtual terminal access, online reporting, real-time authorizations, and premium customer support, including access to a customer support rep assigned to their account, from the moment they download Swipe.”

Depending on your business, how many transactions you expect to do, and the payment gateway you are dealing with either solution could be good for you. We haven’t had any hands-on time with either products, so we’re unsure of the reliability and ease of use between both products.

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Making Fast Money

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