Photo Cred: Bethany Public House – Customer of POSitive Technologies, Inc. since their opening in 2014
Think about the last time you ate at a restaurant. Was every person at your table interacting with each other throughout the
whole meal? There is a high likelihood that at least one person was checking their phone constantly, another was scrolling through instagram, and another was sending snapchats repeatedly.
With all of the ways that technology is incorporated into our everyday lives, one place it is not welcomed is the dinner table. Bethany Public House in Portland’s Bethany district is offering a new approach to the way families spend their meal time.
These days, it seems that cell phones are present in every part of our lives. There is very little encouragement when it comes to promoting a face-to-face interactive environment. Enter Bethany Public House. According to local news station Fox 12 Oregon who covered the story on this innovative restaurant, “Owner Andre Jehan says on Sunday nights, he’s offering a 10-percent discount on meals if everyone at the table puts cellphones [sic] away,”
If families choose to participate, each person places their cell phone into a container on the table that is covered with a seal. “Anybody who breaks the seal pays for the meal,” says Jehan jokingly.
The inspiration for this idea started when Jehan (a customer of POSitive Technologies, Inc. since 2000) noticed how many families were distracted by their phones while dining at his restaurant. The new promotion stemmed from his desire to encourage customers to invest in family time. They are currently offering the discount to cell-phone-free tables during Sunday dinner only, but hope to extend that promotion to all of the days of the week in the future.
With a little bit of help from Bethany Public House, local families are spending their Sunday dinners enjoying quality face-to-face conversations.