NEW YORK - Until swipe fees disappear completely, customers at Brooklyn??s Peter Luger steakhouse should expect that their meals must be paid in cash.

The steakhouse has long refused to accept plastic because of the high interchange fees, notes The Wall Street Journal, and will continue to do so.

"We are standing by it," steakhouse operator Amy Rubenstein told the newspaper. "We have high food costs, so we could give the customer the benefits on the plate rather than in credit cards."

The Journal noted that a number of cash-only businesses need to see financial reform go even further before they accept plastic.

And groups like NACS, the Journal noted, will continue to fight for reform. "The battle is far from over," said NACS Vice President of Communications Jeff Lenard.

The impact of fees hits all retailers, the newspaper noted. Alysa Rose, who runs a lighting and housewares business in Portland, Oregon, told the newspaper that she was spending half a million dollars in interchange fees per year. "We realized we were paying as much in these fees as we are for health-care benefits," she told the Journal.

Rose is trying to incent customers to pay more with cash by displaying signs noting that she donates 2 percent of all cash sales to Haiti earthquake relief. And for online purchases she??s considering adding electronic-check systems to process payments linked to the customer's bank account.