Downtown Greensboro launches digital Boro Bucks to boost local spending

Downtown Greensboro is betting a digital gift card can keep more lunch money, bookstore purchases and dinner tabs inside the city center, starting with 28 participating businesses and a push to add 60 more.

The program, called Boro Bucks, will let buyers choose a dollar amount, load the card into a phone wallet and spend it only at participating downtown businesses. Downtown Greensboro Incorporated said the cards are expected to go live by the end of next week on its website, with incentives for buyers still to come. Scuppernong Books on South Elm Street is already in the mix, a sign the first wave is aimed at merchants that depend on regular, in-person foot traffic.

The launch comes as downtown Greensboro continues to wrestle with a fragile retail and restaurant environment. In early 2026, Dame’s Chicken and Waffles, M’Couls, ‘Cille and ‘Scoe, Los Chicos and Liberty Oak all announced closures, deepening concerns about whether the city’s core is drawing enough repeat customers. Rob Overman, DGI’s interim executive director, described the conditions as a “perfect storm” of economic pressures and reduced spending. DGI said it has been meeting monthly with downtown business owners to better understand what is driving the slowdown.

The gift card is designed to be more than a convenience item. Because Boro Bucks will work only inside the downtown district, every transaction is meant to recycle dollars among Greensboro merchants rather than sending them to national chains or suburban shopping centers. That makes the program a small but direct test of whether local residents will redirect spending if the process is simple enough and the incentive is strong enough.

DGI, which was incorporated in 1996, manages the Municipal Service District for downtown Greensboro and says its work includes enhanced cleaning, beautification, safety, marketing and business promotion. At its March State of Downtown event, the organization outlined the GSO 35 plan, a 10-year effort to add 5,000 residents, 3,000 jobs and more than 100 new or expanded ground-floor businesses.

For merchants, the first likely winners are the places that benefit from routine trips: restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores and shops tied to office workers, eventgoers and visitors parking in the Church Street Deck, Eugene Street Deck, February One Deck and nearby surface lots along Elm, Greene, Washington and Eugene streets. If Boro Bucks catches on, downtown leaders will have a concrete measure of whether Greensboro residents are still willing to spend close to home when the payment method is made easier and the money stays local.