Nowadays, it's rare to find a table of people in a restaurant with zero cellphones in site. There's always someone who can't pry their eyes away from their phone, and it's even become a normal site to see an entire table of customers sitting in silence as they text their friends and scroll through social media while attempting to enjoying their meal. Chick-fil-A restaurants are looking to stop this nonsense once and for all by offering up free treats to those who promise to keep their phones tucked away.
The fast food chain, which is best known for its chicken sandwiches, is offering up free ice cream to each family member who can put their phone down for the entire duration of their meal. Even though cell phones do help bring people closer, using them during mealtime only disconnects people from what's happening at that moment in time.
"We really want our restaurant to provide a sense of community for our customers, where family and friends can come together and share quality time with one another," Chick-fil-A operator Brad Williams explained. "But as we all know, technology increasingly demands more of our time and can be a big distraction, even while we're eating. This got me thinking about what we could do to reduce this distraction during meals."
Over 150 Chick-fil-A locations will now offer a "Cell Phone Coop" to each table at the restaurant where customers are challenged to silence their phones and place them in the cardboard box until they're done eating. Those who do this will not only enjoy a "distraction free" meal, but will receive one of the chain's famous Icedream cones.
"The challenge has completely taken off," Williams said. "We have families who aren't successful the first time and come back to try again. We even have people asking to take the boxes home with them. Our whole community is talking about it."
"For a lot of our regular guests, it's becoming a habit," he also said. "They come in our stores and say, OK, cell phones in the box...I had one family come up to me and the dad say, 'We tried the challenge, but unfortunately my son decided he needed to send a text in the middle of dinner, so we're going to go home with no dessert, no ice cream.' But he said, 'We'll be back next week to try again.'"
