Restaurant Offers No-Phone Discount, Wants Customers to Actually Talk to Each Other

A restaurant in Iowa is offering a discount to customers who give up their cell phones while dining. According to the Des Moines Register, Sneaky's Chicken owner Dave Ferris will give diners 10 percent off their meals on Wednesday evenings for simply handing over their phone and engaging in conversation with each other instead. The phones are placed in boxes that servers bring to the table.

Ferris says he came up with the idea after he "noticed a decline in conversation among customers who seemed preoccupied with their cellphones." He just wants customers to "enjoy each other's company more than their cellphones." Apparently the promotion has been working: Ferris notes that nearly all of his customers participate in the deal.

Sneaky's Chicken joins a growing number of restaurants that are incentivizing customers to put their phones away while dining. A restaurant in Beirut also offers guests a 10 percent discount on their checks if they leave phones in the restaurant's possession and "socialize." Similarly, the now-shuttered Eva Restaurant in Los Angeles offered a 5 percent no-phone discount to diners. Other restaurants such as Bucato in Los Angeles have created "designated cell phone areas," while others have flat out banned phones all together.