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5 Best Business Credit Cards for Restaurant Owner

Do you run a restaurant and want to know what credit card to use? If YES, here is a detailed comparison of 5 best business credit cards for restaurant owners.

It has been advised that a business, no matter how small needs to separate its personal account from its business account. This is the reason why it is very beneficial that every business has a separate account for running its transactions.

Small-business owners, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, can be described as businesses with fewer than 500 employees or less than $7.5 million in average annual receipts. This means that restaurant owners generally fall into this category.

If your restaurant is owned solely by you, and you work under your own name and social security number (rather than a business name), you need a business credit card to keep your expenses separate and protect your own credit profile and assets.

Why Opt for Small Business Credit Cards?

Small business credit cards come with a lot of advantages as they typically have higher spending limits and more generous reward programs than consumer cards. Some have additional benefits such as low APRs, attractive balance transfer promotions, personalized concierge service, and fringe benefits. However, many also come with annual fees and require good or excellent credit to qualify.

If you’re a bigger business, though — or aspire to grow into one, with employees and more resources, having a business card is a must, not only to separate expenses, but to establish business credit, so that you have flexibility later on with loans and leases. Plus, you can get additional authorized cards for employees as needed.

While thinking of getting business credit cards for your business, you have to know that qualifying for business credit cards is a bit different from qualifying for consumer credit cards.

Some issuers simply require you to submit a valid Social Security number and affirm in writing that you’ll use the card exclusively for business purposes. These are the issuers you should typically look out for when seeking to acquire credit cards for your restaurant business.

Issuers that require a federal employer identification number (EIN), seek evidence of incorporation, or ask for financial statements, will give you more hassles.

When looking out for business credit cards that would suit you restaurant business perfectly, you have to research a few before you can make an informed choice. In this article, we will try to sort out from among the myriads of small business credit cards, and attempt to give you the best suggestions that is a bit more business-friendly.

Best Business Credit Card for Restaurant Owner

  1. Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card

The ink business cash credit card is great for a small or startup restaurant businesses that need a business credit card to help them organize their expenses.

This card is great for a small restaurant business with little staff and overhead because it does not carry an annual fee. You also get a 0% intro APR for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers. After that, the variable APR gets up from 15.49% to 21.49%.

This card also features strong reward incentives, such as $500 bonus cash back after you spend $3,000 on your food purchases within the first 3 months of acquiring it. You’ll earn 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent on your inventory and on mobile phone, landline, internet and cable services each year (from the date you open the account).

You’ll also get 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent at gas stations and restaurants, each account anniversary, and 1% cash back on all other purchases.

But you must beware that the Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card has a 3% foreign transaction fee, which can bite you hard if travel frequently for business. But as a restaurant owner, this should not bother you as your business is mostly stationed at a point.

To get the best out of this card, you should endeavor to use your card to pay for all your office supplies, food supplies and communications services, as you’ll get an impressive 5% cash back until you hit $25,000 in combined purchases. To maximize your rewards earnings, consider adding employee cards to your account at no additional cost.

Not only will employee spending count toward your rewards, but you can set spending limits to make sure they don’t stray from your budget. If used well, this can indeed be a good business credit card for a restaurant business that is both small and medium.

  1. Capital One® Spark® Cash

If your restaurant business would benefit greatly from a simple cash back credit card, then you should start looking at Capital One® Spark Cash.

This is a very simple and easy to use card, but simple doesn’t mean bad as the card comes with a lot of great rewards. As a welcome offer, your restaurant will get up to $2,000 ($500 after spending $5,000 in the first three months, and $1,500 when you spend a total of $50,000 in the first six months).

The Capital One® Spark® Cash card offers 2% back on every purchase, without any limit on how much you can earn each year. The Capital One Spark Cash earns unlimited 2% cash back on all purchases. And it has no categories, no points values or conversions, no redemption minimums. Rewards won’t expire for the life of the account, and you can redeem any amount of cash back.

Again, there is no foreign transaction fee, and you can add employee cards to your account for free. The unlimited 2% rewards the card offers is incredibly useful for his small business. Starting and building a business is very expensive, (and) getting a portion of that back to use for further growth is a major help

One of the drawbacks of this card is that you must have excellent credit before you can apply for it. Also, the card has a variable 19.24% APR on purchases and balance transfers and a $0 intro, $95 after first year annual fee. The card has a $95 annual fee, that is waived in the first year.

  1. The Blue Business℠ Plus Credit Card from American Express

Blue Business Plus is a popular American Express business card with a nice rewards program and a long 0% APR introductory promotion.

This card usually doesn’t have a welcome offer, and that might be enough to turn many people away from it. However, it’s currently offering a limited-time bonus, and despite the fact that you usually won’t be able to jump-start your points balance with a massive haul, you’ll earn more through regular spending.

The card offers 2x points on every dollar spent, on your first $50,000 in spending every year (after that, it’s 1x point). There’s also a 0% introductory APR on purchases and balance transfers for the first 15 months, and then a variable rate (currently 12.99%, 16.99% or 20.99%).

While funding your startup with a credit card may not be the best idea, the introductory APR can help if you have a few larger purchases coming up and are still working to get cash flow regular. Best of all, the card has no annual fee.

This card rewards you for conducting business as usual. You earn 2X points on everyday business purchases such as office supplies, food supplies and certain business expenses. The 2X rate applies to the first $50,000 in purchases per year, 1 point per dollar thereafter.

You can redeem accumulated points for gift cards, online merchandise purchases, travel purchases, and more through American Express’s Membership Rewards® portal. Points are typically worth $0.005 to $0.01 when redeemed, and redemption minimums start at 5,000 points.

  1. Chase Ink Business Cash Credit Card

Ink Business Cash is a popular business credit card with a generous cash back rewards program, solid sign-up bonus, and reasonable APR. Its welcome offer include $500 (or 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points) after spending $3,000 in the first three months

The Ink Cash is another solid Chase entry, you can pool the “cash” you earn with points from a points-earning card, effectively converting your cash into (potentially) more valuable points.

The Ink Cash earns 5% cash back (or 5x points) on the first $25,000 in combined purchases at office supply stores and on internet, cable, and phone services each card holder year. It earns 2% back (or 2x points) on the first $25,000 in purchases at gas stations and restaurants each year, and 1% (or 1x point) on everything else with no cap.

Redeem accumulated cash back for statement credits or direct deposits starting at $20, airfare booked through Chase’s Ultimate Rewards portal (which offers the opportunity to boost your cash back by 20%, turning $500 in cash back into $625 in travel purchases), gift cards, and Amazon purchases. Redemptions start at $20.

the Ink Cash offers a 0% introductory APR for 12 months (with a variable 14.99-20.99% APR after), and has no annual fee.

Chase’s Purchase Protection plan covers new purchases against damage or theft for 120 days, up to $10,000 per claim and $50,000 total per account. The Extended Warranty plan offers complimentary extended warranty protection for an additional 12 months on warranties originally set to expire after three years or less.

  1. SimplyCash® Plus Business Credit Card from American Express

The SimplyCash Plus Business Credit Card is a popular American Express credit card with a generous 0% APR introductory promotion (15 months), solid cash rewards program, and relatively low fees. However, you can’t make balance transfers with this card.

Office supply and cell phone purchases (in the U.S. only) earn 5% cash back, up to $50,000 per year. Purchases (also in the U.S. only) in one additional category of your choice earn 3% cash back, up to $50,000 per year. Available categories include hotels, airfare, car rentals, gas stations, restaurants, advertising, shipping, and computer hardware, software, or cloud computing.

After the $50,000 limits, purchases in the 3% and 5% categories earn unlimited 1% cash back, as do all other purchases. You also get a $250 statement credit after you spend $5,000 on your card within the first six months of card membership, and an additional $250 statement credit after you spend an additional $10,000 within the first year.

Again, this is one of the few cards that offers bonus rewards on internet advertising, which could come in handy for a restaurant business that uses Facebook or Google ads to support their business. The American Express SimplyCash Plus comes with some fairly robust protections against loss and damage, including:

Extended warranty: American Express will match the length of the original manufacturer’s warranty if it’s less than two years. American Express provides an additional two years if the original manufacturer’s warranty is between two and five years. Coverage is limited to $10,000 per occurrence and $50,000 per account each year.

Purchase protection: The issuer will repair, replace, or reimburse you for an item purchased with the card that was damaged or stolen within 120 days of purchase. Coverage is limited to $1,000 per occurrence and $50,000 per account each year.

Baggage insurance: If your luggage is damaged or lost when you travel on a common carrier like a plane, trip, ship, or bus, American Express will reimburse you for losses not covered by your own personal insurance.

One drawback of this card is that the spending requirement is high, and you’ll want to avoid this card when traveling overseas, not only because you’ll pay foreign transaction fees, but because American Express isn’t as widely accepted as Visa or Mastercard. This may not be much of a problem for your restaurant business as you may not engage in much travels, if any at all.

Conclusion

When evaluating the best credit cards for your restaurant business, we considered

  • Introductory APR – Whether a card offers a 0% introductory period on purchases and balance transfers
  • Ongoing APR – The ongoing interest rate charged on purchases and balance transfers
  • Annual fee – The annual cost to have a small business credit card
  • Introductory rewards – Whether a card offers introductory bonus points or cash back
  • Ongoing rewards – The rewards structure of a small business credit card and the level of points or cash back you can earn on ongoing purchases

After taking these things into consideration, we recommend the Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card as the best overall card that will be a good fit for your restaurant business. It is the most versatile card that provides up to 5% cash back on select purchases.

It is recommended that for you to get the best business cards for your restaurant business, you need to have a credit score of above 650. This is because good credit scores is one of the general requirement for descent enough business credit cards.