Local restaurants grapple with table texting

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This article was published 04/03/2012 (4993 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg restaurateurs just shake their heads at all the cellphones ringing, the people clutching smartphones to text and the students firing up laptops in their establishments.

They are powerless to stop the trend. If they prohibited people from using their electronic devices, they’d lose half their customers.

Coffee shops are hardest hit. “People will spend $3 and some of them stay for many hours,” says Second Cup part-owner Rafe Abdullah.

So why not kick them out after an hour? “We don’t want our store to get that reputation,” says Abdullah, whose front door advertises free Wi-Fi so anyone can connect.

 

During a recent visit, half the tables at the Osborne Street and River Avenue Starbucks café were buzzing and beeping, while three-quarters of the patrons at Second Cup nearby were using laptops and phones. Students were busy researching and writing papers, business types were talking on cells and the youngest customers were texting their thumbs off. Cups of coffee sat on the tables, some with a few crumbs scattered about.

In bigger restaurants, people sit with the remnants of lunch or dinner beside them. Some have their smartphones in full view. Others hide them under the table.

“I think it’s so rude to go out with people who take calls and text,” says Lilac Bakery owner Chris Atkinson. “My partner and I were out for dinner with another couple and I noticed they were secretly texting across the table from us. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding! You’re texting each other in front of us? What are you talking about?’ ” Turns out the other couple wanted to go to the Home Depot.

“It’s unbelievable,” says John Kolevris, the owner of Saffron’s restaurant on the Corydon Avenue strip, which attracts a young to middle-aged crowd. “At a table of five, there can be three or four people on their phones.” You can tell if a date is not going well, he says with a laugh. “If the woman is boring, the date pretends he has a caller and has to look on his phone.”

But Kolevris sheepishly admits he’s addicted himself, in a different way. He’s a photo addict with 590 photos he scrolls through to show me his travel pics and food design ideas gleaned from other restaurants. “I was sitting here with a few friends the other day, and three of us were on the phones. I was finding a picture to show them, and somebody was looking to see if Kirk Douglas was still alive.”

Kolevris’s daughter Natasha, the restaurant’s general manager, says smartphones do have an important role to play in restaurants. “I can text staff anywhere about shifts. A lot of them are students. They wouldn’t be able to answer ordinarily, but they can text me back right away.” But her dad says he finds iPhones and BlackBerrys are big distractions to workers on duty in the restaurant. It drives him crazy when staff are on phones when they should be working. “Sometimes I have had to ask them to put the cellphones in their purses and have the purses locked in the back.”

There have been interesting societal shifts in the last three years. The irritating sounds of people yapping on cellphones are being replaced by the quiet click-click-click of texting. Cellphones used to be considered the rudest of all electronic intruders, because people responded out loud — fighting with mates, making dates, scolding kids or making business deals. Back in the day, other restaurant patrons would give cellphone users “the look” or make snide comments like, “Must you do that in here?” So, people got cagey, tucking them under the tables set on vibrate. When they got the secret jolt of an incoming call, they’d make an excuse and deke into the bathroom.

When texting arrived big-time, people unabashedly began setting their smartphones right down on the table like an extra side plate. They will often work or play while they glance across the table at each other, or they don’t look up at all.

People don’t apologize for quietly texting, especially if it’s a spontaneous “reciprocell” situation. That’s the word for a new social behaviour where a group of people comes in with their hand-held devices and waits until someone starts to use one. If no one objects, out pop everyone else’s electronics. I spotted an entire table of four with coffees all talking away — but none of them were talking to the friends who were with them at the table.

Over at Basil Lagopoulos’s newly reopened restaurant, Bistrot by Basil, the owner noticed a big difference when he got back into the business after 31/2 years spent fighting with his insurance company and rebuilding his water-soaked restaurant. In fact, he has produced a mission statement to give people the idea of his new incarnation: “We endeavour to provide an environment that promotes social interaction over food and wine.”

So far, most people have respected that. It doesn’t hurt that the menu politely also asks you to leave your laptops behind. “But we can’t ask people not to bring their cellphones, because the babysitter could be calling. A cellphone can be a very useful instrument.”

Rather than criticize people, he says his restaurant does everything to encourage face-to-face social interaction. “We let people know we are not rushing them, and we keep the music pleasant and low enough so that people don’t have to yell — or resort to using phones to talk to each other.”

Basil says he simply can’t support a place where people order a cup of coffee and stay all day, but he wants people to drop in to visit with friends — not necessarily for dinner — and feel free to stay. To that end, he has a big case of baking delights for coffee visitors, greeting people right at the front door. “And, of course, we’re a full-service restaurant for meals and (we have) a lot of staff.”

At Second Cup, Abdullah regretfully says he understands electronics are here to stay in cafés like his, but he draws the line at people who make it hard for his staff. “They are texting when they come to the counter and when the girls ask what they want, they tell them to wait until they are finished! Then they keep on texting to their friends. It’s very rude and disrespectful.”

Abdullah says there are some customers who come in alone and play for hours on their devices. “They are alone with nothing else to do, for three or four hours.” Why? There’s no pressure from anyone accompanying them to turn off their devices. Sometimes it’s just easier to offload your live friends.

Abdullah has a somewhat pessimistic prediction for the future. “I’m afraid there will be no direct conversation. It gives me a feeling of isolation,” he says, adding he only looks at his email when no one else is in the room to talk to.

“You have to respect the other people in your life.”