Chick-fil-A ‘Cellphone Coops’ a Hit
Brad Williams, who owns two Chick-fil-A locations in Georgia, believes families should use mealtime to visit with one another, not be glued to their cellphones. He thought of an innovative way to encourage conversation – offer free ice cream for diners who stay off their phones for the entire meal.
He created what he calls a “cellphone coop,” which is a box that sits on every table in his restaurants. The box, decorated with wire, instructs diners to turn their cellphones on silent and place them in the coop. If the phones stay inside the box for the entire meal, diners get a free ice cream dessert.
A 2023 study found that 68 percent of households have a person using their phone during a meal with others. It also found that 65 percent of respondents do not like it, and 42 percent believe using phones during meals is rude.
“It just got me thinking how to get people to disconnect in order to connect and to take a technology timeout,” Williams told ABC News. “Be present where your feet are. We’re trying to slowly create rituals that create disciplines and will slowly create habits. It’s almost like we’re starting to create a no-cellphone zone.”
Williams started placing the coops in his two restaurants in mid-January, using a local printer and ideas from Pinterest to design the coops locally. Since then, Williams said, more than 10,000 coops have been built, and nearly 200 independent Chick-fil-A operators are using the idea in their own restaurants.
The promotion is not being implemented companywide but recently has gone viral and drawn praise from families as well as politicians, including the governor of Arkansas. “More and more people are realizing that phones create distance at the table,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted on social media.. “I hope more restaurants will follow @ChickfilA’s lead.”
Williams already is seeing a positive impact. “There’s more conversation and chatter,” he said. “It’s hard to sit with your family and not do the challenge now.”
–Alan Goforth
#ChickfilA #FamilyMeals #PhoneFree #CellphoneCoop #ScreenTime #FreeIceCream #DigitalDetox
