Chocolate Delicacy Gets Cash Mobbed

A bunch of customers with $20 bills in their hands, looking to spend. That’s a sight any Main Street business owner would be happy to see. And in fact, on Wednesday, several owners hoped the group of people walking down Main Street would be coming to their shop.

Raycene Cogean of had even written a note on the chalkboard sign outside the restaurant: “Welcome Cash Mob! Come in for a bite.”

A few in the crowd said they’d be back, but the group’s Pied Piper, Tim Hudyncia, one of the two founders of Let’s Buy Local, kept walking. He alone knew the group’s destination, which was chosen at random after the cash mobbers had gathered in the parking lot in front of Back to Basics.

Let’s Buy Local got into the cash mob biz after Laura Winward, who owns Waves of Creation in Wakefield, in January. She'd put the word on out Facebook.

“I had heard about it from a Wall Street Journal article and I thought, what a great idea. Why isn’t this happening everywhere? And I just sort of sat back and waited for someone to do something and nothing happened,” Winward recalled. “I decided, ‘I’m an independent business owner. I need to put my money where my mouth is,’ and decided to organize the first cash mob in Rhode Island."

Hudyncia showed up to that first event and decided to bring the idea to central Rhode Island. Since then, he and Lea Knepley have organized mobs, but this was the first in East Greenwich. Around 25 people showed up, not a huge number by cash mob standards – a couple have attracted as many as 100 people. But they were an enthusiastic bunch.

After walking a few blocks, Hudyncia stopped in front of . This was it. Everyone crowded in.

It turns out you can buy a lot of candy with $20. And, for shopowner Marie Schaller, the event couldn't have come at a better time.

A customer had come in earlier that day with a $100 bill that day. It looked normal and the customer was a friend. But when Schaller took it across the street to Bank of America to get some change for their cash register, she learned it was counterfeit. The bank confiscated the bill and the shop was out $100.

The woman who’d used it said she’d gotten it at a casino, Schaller said. "It’s okay, but everyone should be careful," she noted.

And now $20 bills were flowing back into the till.

Longtime EG resident Theresa Vezeridis was happy to join the town's first cash mob.

"I just heard about it a month ago. I’m thrilled that they’re doing it because I’ve lived in town 29 years and I sell houses here and I think it’s a great idea," she said. "I’ll do anything to make the town a better place to live, raise a family and do business."

The end result?

"We sold an extra $857 in 30 minutes! Thanks so much for your support and your good karma!" wrote Schaller on the CD's Facebook page. Operation success.