First world problems… In today’s fast paced, globally connected, socially integrated and total mobile dependent world the beauty of a candle lit dinner is a thing of the past. I myself am no Saint and have received many a scolding form my wife when “checking the score” at the dinner table. But it seems as though this phenomenon is affecting the way restaurant owners feel about their business. So much so that Awdat Ibrahim, owner of the Abu Ghosh restaurant in an Arab village outside Jerusalem, is offering a 50 percent discount if everyone at the table turns off his or her cell phone. The Associated Press reported that Ibrahim got tired of the married or the loving sitting in silence. Why, sometimes they were so grossly engrossed that they didn’t even eat. They asked him to reheat their food.
Ibrahim also stated that: “Technology is very good. But just when you eat, just especially when you are with your family and your friends, you can just wait for half an hour and enjoy the food and enjoy the company.” But this doesn’t seem to stop people from posting a photo of every course on Instagram, checking in on Foursquare and posting “Date Night!!!” on Facebook. Because everyone just HAS TO KNOW what your evening is like. What is remarkable is Ibrahim’s apparent generosity. A 50 percent discount will most definitely hamper the profits of any business, especially that of a restaurants where margins are quite thin!
Mr Ibrahim isn’t the first restaurateur to pull this move (well maybe the first to go this big!). Last year, LA restaurant EVA offered its customers a 5% incentive to leave their cell phones at the door. Bucato (also in LA), banned cell phones in order to prevent what it called “Gastro ADD.” Even the famous David Chang’s restaurants in the Big Apple ban the use of phones to take food porn (such an apt description) to post in Instagram.
All in all the big discount thing may be great publicity. But it is sad that we need a 50% incentive to get back the 50% of our life we sold to technology. And I have to admit, my wife is right, though she would insist that she always is…
