The owner of a restaurant near Jerusalem wants you to shut up and eat. Jawdat Ibrahim, who runs a restaurant named Abu Ghosh in a town of the same name, is fed up with the invasive way cell phones have transformed how we eat: instead of enjoying a meal to its fullest extent, we’re likely to be swiping and pinching on our devices and ignoring our dining partners.
"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," Ibrahim told the Associated Press. "A lot of people, they sit down and they don't enjoy their food, their company."
To encourage customers to take a break from their digital addictions, Ibrahim is offering a 50 percent discount to those who manage to keep their phones turned off while eating. Ibrahim said the move is a bid to “change the culture of eating.”
So far, an overwhelming majority of his customers have chosen to take up his offer, bound by an honor code to keep their phones turned off during the entirety of their meals.
The stunt might prove to be bad for Ibrahim’s bottom line but we wouldn’t be surprised if other restaurateurs soon followed his lead.
[via Time]
