Distracted-Dining Is A Thing & Chick-fil-A Is Fighting It With Free Ice Cream

Walk into just about any restaurant or fast food joint and you’ll inevitably see several diners with food in one hand and their phone in the other. Chick-fil-A wants to change that, and it’ll reward customers with free dessert if they are willing to eat a distraction-free meal.

Chick-fil-A is challenging customers in about 150 stores across the country to drop their phones and spend a little time with their family, friends, or other dining companions.

Under the promotion, customers can ditch their phones in a “Cell Phone Coop,” — a small, square box that sits on the customers’ table — while they enjoy their meal.

Groups who are able to make it through the entire meal without retrieving their phone receive a free ice cream cone.

“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,” Brad Williams, a Chick-fil-A operator who came up with the idea, said in a statement.

So far, challenge has been a hit, the company says. Operators of other Chick-fil-A restaurants have asked for their own Cell Phone Coops. As a result, the company is opening the challenge to 150 stores, with other possibly joining in the future.

“The challenge had really taken off. We have families who aren’t successful the first time and come back to try again,” Williams said. “We even have people asking to take the boxes home with them! Our whole community is talking about it.”

[via CNBC]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist