The power outage in downtown Seattle on Wednesday wasn’t going to keep office workers from eating, and thanks to one bit of technology from the payment service Square, food trucks did a brisk business.
The company reached out to say that, based on a survey of vendors in the Occidental Square area, Square’s Offline Mode was a big help during the hour or so that power was lost. The tool allows sellers to continue to process transactions when they lose a signal.
Here’s how it works:
- Swiped payments taken offline are automatically queued and processed when your connection comes back.
- All data from swiped payments collected in Offline Mode is encrypted and stored securely on the device.
- When connectivity is established, payment data is transferred to Square servers.
The food trucks in Occidental Square are having a good day. #Seattle #poweroutage pic.twitter.com/T4fvLyjwLo
— Cody Permenter (@somecody) May 25, 2016
With power out downtown Seattle, food trucks are doing brisk business in Westlake Park. #SEAoutage pic.twitter.com/0StL45NvkQ
— David Bennett (@DvBnt) May 25, 2016
What do you do during an #epicpoweroutage? Go to lunch at the food trucks. pic.twitter.com/iqBuqr8Iam
— Seattle magazine (@Seattlemag) May 25, 2016
A rep from Square told GeekWire that many lunch spots weren’t able to accept cards during the outage. Cecilia Rikard, owner of the food truck Off The Rez, told Square that they had 25-30 percent more sales (from credit cards) during that time.
