It’s great when we’re on vacation and don’t have a data plan for that country. In fact we updated our Facebook statuses to “MARRIED” at our wedding dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas right after our wedding.
At least you waited until after the ceremony. I think there was a YouTube video a while back showing a couple updating their Facebook status right at the altar.
For me, wi-fi is not a factor in choosing where to go for dinner. However, during the course of the conversation, we’ll usually hit on something where we need more details. It’s nice to be able to whip out the phone and look something up on the spot.
If I’m alone, I want wifi or a newspaper. Or both. If I’m with someone, then I’m with them, not the internet.
It wasn’t a study, it was an anonymous craigslist post with made-up numbers that only a twit would believe are remotely reasonable. Hence, it was picked up by Distractify, metapicture, and a number of other click-bait websites, which in turn made it seem reasonable to other shitty news aggregators. One of my conservative friends shared it via the Independent Journal Review, which went so far as to admit that the story may or may not be true but that it certainly felt true, so something something.
But the story is most certainly not true, as Slate found out when they actually took the time to do some journalism and interview restaurant owners in NYC.
The Slate article does a pretty good job of pointing out the idiocy, but among other things the original post says that 27 out of 54 guests spent an average of 5 minutes having their waiter take a group photo. This is absurd on its face, but people are so goddamn eager to feel smug about their own moderate smartphone use that they, like the IJR, just sorta feel that this is right.
To answer the OP, I’ve never jumped on a restaurant’s wifi with my phone. Ever. That’s why I have a data plan, and my 4G is fantastic pretty much everywhere. I don’t know anyone who does use a restaurant’s wifi, unless they’re at a coffee shop and they pull out a laptop. I’ve gone to McDonalds with a laptop to do work because I know they have wifi at a lot of locations, but now that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot I don’t even bother with that.
Unlike the rest of you, Wi-fi features quite often in my decisions on where I will dine. For one thing, I don’t have a data plan, as I can’t justify the price with my homebody habits.
Sure, food quality can override this concern, but when I just want anything to eat, I will more likely go to the McDonald’s that has Wi-fi rather than the other fast food places that don’t.
And, at sit-down restaurants, it has nothing to do with how long it takes me to eat or order. The point is to have something to do while I wait. At fast food restaurants, I guess it does lead to me actually going inside, but I’m also very aware of how busy the place is.
There was an article recently in, I think, The New York Times about a popular coffeehouse which not only turned off their wifi but forbade the use of laptops and smart phones. There was a turnover in regular customers, but the ones who remained and the new ones who started coming apparently really enjoyed it. It made the atmosphere much more sociable, and people didn’t camp out in one spot for hours on end.
Myself, I recently moved, and I haven’t gotten Internet at my new place yet. I could go to the library, but the hours are extremely short, so often I pick a restaurant and have dinner there when I need to do stuff online. But I’m on more or less likely to stay a long time if Internet is available than if it’s not. I almost always take a book to dinner, and I read to relax.
Free publicity is worthless if you lack capacity - and that is the basic alleged problem - they had capacity for the pre-digital age, now because throughput has been reduced, their capacity has been lowered. Don’t forget you need to raise prices to compensate for the lower turnover of tables - AND all that technology you are going to put in place. I’m sure clients will be thrilled to pay more.
A friend of mine is a chef/restauranteur. Every year he is on the verge of having to shut down his restaurant until the busy season arrives - then he gets a few months of profit which he has learned to horde so he can buy what he needs to get the restaurant going when it gets busy again. There isn’t extra money for web apps and technological solutions - he needs to put people through his restaurant efficiently at a competitive price point when there are people there (its an Alaskan cruise town - you make money during cruise season, you shut down your restaurant and lay off your waitstaff in the Winter).
I’m one of maybe a dozen people in the whole country who doesn’t have a smart phone so I don’t care about WiFi. I do hate when I’m out with someone who can’t put down the damned phone, and I am amazed at the number of tables full of people just sitting, bent over their phones. Yes, I know, sometimes there are emergencies that require your immediate attention, but I also know there are lots of things that can wait.
Maybe it’s a generational thing, but, dang, put down the stoopit phone! Kim and Kanye will still be doing idiotic things when you get home. And get off my lawn!!!
I went out to a bar with my wife last night, and we spent a noticeable portion of our time looking at our smartphones. One such exchange had to do with the Mrs. Robinson cover that came on, the one from the '90s. Who sang it? And what movie did we both recognize it from? Like Pete Holmes says, we no longer have to not know. Unlike Pete Holmes, we’re not smitten with the wonder of not knowing. Off to Google! And it was Lemonheads, and neither of the movies it was featured in were movies we would have remembered. So that was that.
A cherry-picked anecdote for sure, but not *all *phone-use is anti-social. It fit right into our conversation, and then we put the phones down and talked until the next '90s song made us scratch our heads…
Last year, I was visiting my family out-of-state and we’d spent the majority of the day talking, catching up, laughing, etc. When it came time for dinner, we went out to a restaurant. While we were waiting on our meal, my father received a work email on his phone that required an immediate response, my mother was going to show me some photos she took on her phone of my cousin’s baby, and I was looking through mine to show her photos of my new apartment. This was maybe all of five minutes, if I had to give a liberal estimate.
Meanwhile, an older gentleman gets up from his table, walks over to ours, puts his hand on my shoulder and starts “jokingly” chastising the three of us for not engaging each other in conversation, all the while bemoaning the “younger generation.” I shot him a look and explained to him why each of us was on our phone. He made some other smarmy response and then rejoined his wife at the table across the room.
So what solution do you propose? We all drop our data plans so that a marginally profitable restaurant in a crappy location can squeak by for another season? There is no getting around the fundamental fact that businesses that can adapt to market changes continue to stay in business, and those that can’t adapt for whatever reason don’t.
I realize this is a tangent for a thread about wi-fi. But inordinate delays in getting the check is my biggest gripe about restaurants (I’m looking at you , NYC restaurants.) Worse than high prices or mediocre food. Perhaps its a clash of cultures. I’m usually not in a rush to get out of a place, but for the love of cod, don’t make me come find you when it’s time to go. It’s not hard to see there is no food on my plate, my knife and fork are properly positioned to signal the end of the meal, and maybe I have theater tickets or a baby sitter waiting at home. I don’t think it’s rude to bring the check early and state nicely, “take your time,” or “no problem if you want anything else.” You don’t even have to actually lay down the check, just come by within 20 minutes of the end of the meal and ask how are things going.
I don’t hate that restaurants have wi-fi, but a lot of those chain cafes in our area never have seating available. Instead, there’s some business wonk working away and nursing a small coffee, oblivious to the family wanting a booth or a couple wanting a small table. This can’t be doing the restaurant’s business any good. One I’m familiar with has had to put in a drive-thru, and I suspect it’s due to the moochers.
I go to restaurants to eat and converse; wifi is irrelevant. I usually have connectivity on my smartphone whether or not wifi is available to me anyway. Although like many here (and many people I know) I will check my device during dinner, or use it to look something up, in a social way. That said - I usually leave my phone locked in the vehicle for social outings just because I don’t want to be one of those people with my attention more on my device than with the people I’m with.
However, during last winter’s “polar vortex” during which a large number of people here were without power in bitter cold temperatures (like thousands of others, I was without power for an entire week) some local McDonalds stayed open 24/7 so people could charge devices, check news/communicate and stay warm. My Christmas dinner was spent with a bunch of people at McDonald’s, and I had a fish sandwich. 
This, exactly. I have a smartphone so if I need to go online for some reason I can. Except when I am overseas, then I will select a place that has wifi over one that does not.
In that case it’s really up to the restaurant manager to set a time limit for patrons. Back when I was in college sometimes students would go into an all-night restaurant, take a table, lay out their books and notes, and attempt to sit there and study all night. I dont know how the restaurant could afford that.
So if they have someone taking up a table when others are needing it, I think it’s ok to ask the person to pay and leave.
Probably that people get used to change - restaurants are going to have to charge more if their tables turn over less. Waiters are going to make less money or start asking for the tip rate to creep up again. And you may have to wait longer for a table at your favorite restaurant. If I recall correctly - in busy places in Europe you can certainly spend the afternoon at that sidewalk cafe, but the table minimum may be more than a single cup of coffee to have that privilege - and we already see some of that.
The other option is that people start considering others in their actions - think about how they are using their space and time and how that impacts others. So using a table in an empty cafe for an afternoon to drink coffee and surf the web/chat with friends/read a book/finish your presentation for work - that is a really pleasant idea. When the dinner rush starts to hit, using a table for hours on end to do the same is inconsiderate (unless its the sort of place where the MEAL takes hours - in which case the restaurant probably only plans for one or two seatings all evening - and charges appropriately). And when your friend is at dinner with you and your attention is on your phone for any reason other than glancing at your calls to make sure it isn’t the babysitter (or some other “I must take this now” call) - you are being rude. But I think that’s less likely.
That’s not the sort of thing I was thinking about. When my husband still had a data plan on his smart phone, we’d use it, for example, to see when a certain business opened, or how far it was to a specific place, or even “What was the name of that guy in that thing?” He’d even check his work email, which I thought was on the rude side, since nothing he did was time-critical-omg-the-company-need-you-NOW!! But those sorts of things were generally quick, and except for the work stuff, they were usually part of a conversation.
The stuff that gets me shaking my head is an entire family engrossed with their devices, oblivious to the rest of the world. Maybe they consider that to be quality time together…
The internet as part of the conversation (“who WAS the actor in that movie?! Its going to bug me until I figure it out”) is a boon to conversation.
Playing Words with Friends while in the company of OTHER friends is not.