Great. It would be nice to normalize that as a feature. A cafe near me sort of has this by simply not offering WiFi and having a sign about it, and it works - there are people having conversations with their kids and with friends and with strangers there, while all other cafes seem to be mostly people on their phones and iPads (especially kids) and laptops. Also we need a total ban on meta glasses and other similar surveillance devices.
fc417fc802•Apr 5, 2026
The former (traditional personal devices) and the latter (wearable surveillance platforms) are not even remotely the same thing.
quchen•Apr 5, 2026
There are a couple of communities that have almost no phone presence. Certain kinds of music festivals are an example, and it's really quite nice not having to worry about being filmed.
fc417fc802•Apr 5, 2026
What are you doing that has you worried about strangers filming you? I'd be pretty offended and creeped out if a total stranger was following me around filming for no apparent reason but that isn't something that happens presumably because I'm not particularly interesting.
I opened this comment section because I was perplexed by the premise of the title and after scrolling a bit I remain entirely unable to comprehend the underlying motivations.
anonymousiam•Apr 5, 2026
There's a breakfast spot that I visit sometimes, with a sign on the wall that reads; "We do not have 'WiFi' -- Talk to each other -- Pretend it's 1995"
Teever•Apr 5, 2026
I totally support the phone-free bar and restaurant experience and encouraging people to socialize verbally instead of online but the thing is that I like to eat breakfast alone.
It's a meditative process to me. There's nothing better than sitting in a greasy spoon looking out at a rainy day eating bacon and hashbrowns while sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Just watching the world and gthe people go by while flipping and folding the pages of a large newspaper. That's bliss.
Now that newspapers aren't really a thing anymore I like to read the news on my phone, or a paper about a topic that interests me.
It's good to promote socializing as long as it doesn't come at the expensive at reflective processes.
senko•Apr 5, 2026
> It's a meditative process to me. [...] I like to read the news on my phone.
I don't think reading news, especially on the phone, is meditative.
With paper you might pause & reflect while turning a page, with phone even that is lost.
> Just watching the world and the people go by while
Why not do that without looking at the phone?
Teever•Apr 5, 2026
I knew someone was going to pull on that little thread.
So let's use a dictionary definition: meditative -- of, involving, or absorbed in meditation or considered thought.
In that context I have for decades now enjoyed sipping coffee, reading the news, and watching peope go by, smiling at the waitress, and considering how it all fits together. The cream in my cup, the man crossing the street, the price of tea in China -- it's all connected. Sometimes do this without a phone or a newspaper or a book. Sometimes I don't.
This is just how I like to spend my Sunday breakfast. Alone. Not talking to people. Watching them and the world.
senko•Apr 5, 2026
Beautifully said, thank you.
I'm glad I pulled on that thread :)
Teever•Apr 5, 2026
Thank you for the kind words.
I agree that a phone provides a suboptimal experience for this kind of thing.
I loved seeing the pile of newspapers that have already been rifled through by previous patrons who have finished their morning meal. Picking the exact paper or sections that I want, perhaps grabbing a finished section from an old man who has already sat down and made it half way through his morning breakfest ritual.
thumbing through the pages, holding the paper up to fold it over, putting it down on the table and pressing that edge of the with your thumb to make a sharp edge and then sipping your coffee.
There really is nothing like it.
heeton•Apr 5, 2026
> I totally support the phone-free bar and restaurant experience
If you then expect an exemption because your phone use is different then I challenge that you don’t actually support the experience.
If you want to read news in a phone-free environment: bring a newspaper, a kindle, etc.
bawolff•Apr 5, 2026
What experience are you expecting in a phone-free breakfast joint if you are there by yourself? Interupting other patrons meals to randomly talk to them? That sounds kind of like hell.
myself248•Apr 5, 2026
Boredom and being alone with your thoughts is not, as popularly believed, fatal.
gosub100•Apr 5, 2026
You could enforce this by making a farday cage out of the building. I looked into this for an irrational (5G is government poison) family member. I wasn't going to debate how RF works, just buy some points by helping her indulge her fantasy. But actual RF blocking copper mesh material is very expensive. I wonder if this could be done via wallpaper and printing using a conductive ink printed on the same pattern?
madaxe_again•Apr 5, 2026
Just run a jammer - much easier and just as illegal - although if you use a busted microwave from the 80s it gives you good plausible deniability.
wikibob•Apr 5, 2026
Faraday cages are passive and not illegal. Jamming is.
gruez•Apr 5, 2026
>although if you use a busted microwave from the 80s it gives you good plausible deniability.
Not every radio runs off 2.4G, the frequency that microwaves would affect. Even for wifi there's 5ghz and 6ghz bands. For cellphones there are far more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands
gosub100•Apr 5, 2026
"just"
cyanydeez•Apr 5, 2026
SImilar, except their belief is part of a illness that's some kind of dementia. It went further into all kinds of radiations, including things that are meaningless, like the 911 frequency.
It degraded slowly over a decade. It's "stabilized" but just a bunch of word salad.
gruez•Apr 5, 2026
>I wonder if this could be done via wallpaper and printing using a conductive ink printed on the same pattern?
AFAIK they have to be grounded so it'll be a massive pain to install, even if you can get it printed.
kibwen•Apr 5, 2026
Last I checked there was no consensus on whether or not a Faraday cage needed to be grounded to function properly, which seemed surprising.
avidiax•Apr 5, 2026
Well, what does it mean to be "grounded". There isn't something special about the voltage potential of Earth.
If a Faraday cage blocks interstellar signals only if one part of it is stuck in a ball of mud and rock... well, I have some questions.
There is the possibility of the ground being a return path to the transmitter, but if that were effective, radio infrastructure would interfere world-wide, and you could transmit through the earth's core. And even that argument would suggest that the Faraday cage should be floating, not grounded.
iamnothere•Apr 5, 2026
[delayed]
silisili•Apr 5, 2026
You really don't need a full on faraday cage. Signals in the phone frequency range are pretty poor at penetration, especially brick or concrete. I once lived in a house with lath and plaster walls, and I had to leave the office door open to even get wifi in there.
Perhaps some well placed metallic material on or near the windows would suffice?
nahkoots•Apr 5, 2026
Linus Tech Tips made a Faraday cage out of an employee's house using graphite-based EMF-blocking paint. MMS messages with images couldn't be sent from within the house, although text messages and phone calls went through. They didn't do anything to treat the windows, though, so maybe if you combine the paint with some sort of fine wire mesh over the windows you'd get a more comprehensive blocking effect.
At $200/gallon, the cost of the paint would also be a major consideration.
Hmm I love phone free nightclubs (or rather camera free, they tape off the cameras). Like techno clubs.
Not so much of a fan of this in bars and restaurants, sometimes you need to stay in touch with friends who are still arriving etc. Or often they change their mind "this place is cool, why don't you come to us instead of us coming to you?". But ok plenty of places to choose from.
jermaustin1•Apr 5, 2026
> sometimes you need to stay in touch with friends who are still arriving etc.
Do we need to? We are way too communicative now days. Back before everyone had cell phones, you said on Monday to friends and/or co-workers, "Let's get drinks on Friday at 7pm at BarClub" - Everyone put it in their diary, and on Friday at 6:55-7:30, people showed up where they were supposed to.
We now have this anxiety around not being in constant contact with people, when just a couple decades ago, we wouldn't talk to a person for days/weeks at a time, but still manage to get together without (m)any issues.
wussboy•Apr 5, 2026
Humans used to get on ships and sail away, perhaps never to be heard from again. We can absolutely survive several minutes of confusion around eating arrangements. "Text me when you get there." Let's all just calm down and live with a little uncertainty
wolvoleo•Apr 5, 2026
Go for it but don't force it on me.
borski•Apr 5, 2026
There will always be other places that don’t care.
But I think it’s okay to appreciate the world around you and spend time being present while waiting for someone. We used to do this all the time. People watching is fun.
wolvoleo•Apr 5, 2026
Yeah there'll be others sure.
There's another aspect: these days most people don't like being told what to do. When it infringes on other people's lives like making photos I understand but anything else nope.
I couldn't imagine working in an army either. I'd never let them get away with barking at me.
borski•Apr 5, 2026
People have never liked being told what to do. Even in the military, it's rare that anyone likes being told what to do. The point is that you do it anyway, because you are disciplined and believe in the chain of command, provided you aren't being asked to do something illegal.
If you don't trust your chain of command, then there are issues. But militaries are decidedly not democracies, because the military often requires swift action, and democracies move slowly by design.
wolvoleo•Apr 5, 2026
I am absolutely not disciplined and don't believe in a chain of command though. And I never will.
There's talk of bringing military service back in my country but I would honestly prefer fighting my own country than the enemy.
I hope more people are going to be like that when they implement it.
borski•Apr 5, 2026
That's fine, I wasn't trying to convince you. :) I was just clarifying that there isn't a human alive who actually likes being told what to do. There is usually a reason they do it anyway, but it is rarely because they like it.
(I am exaggerating, and in the sense of pleasure there are obviously submissive people, etc., but you get my point, I think)
wolvoleo•Apr 5, 2026
It is what it is. It's how things work now. Anyway I have great respect for places that tape off cameras because it makes others feel safe. Because they know they won't be photographed without consent.
But being on your mobile somewhere is more of a "you do you" thing for me. I'm not always on my phone, when I go out I don't go near it normally but getting a quick message is no problem IMO. For example when plans change. When others are on phones around me I don't find that very annoying, there's much more annoying behaviour.
Personally I hate planning and love chaos so I really like this thing where I see someone online at 2am and they're like "hey why don't you come out to this club". Which happens fairly often.
downut•Apr 5, 2026
In 1989 I wrote and posted a paper letter to a college friend of ours in Northern England, asking, hey, around [June date I forget] we will be in London, want to meetup? A while later I get a reply letter saying sure, how about we meet at Piccadilly Circus on this date at this time. I posted an affirmative reply and there was no further communication. We were in Arizona at the time.
On the agreed-to date and time we were there, and so was she.
If we were talk about paper maps, it would blow people's minds. If we were to get further in the weeds and describe how we traveled around communist Czechoslovakia w/o a map, only a phrasebook entitled "Travelers Czech", well...
Ah I forgot! We, without being specific about the date, knew that other college friends of ours, originally from Czechoslovakia, had told us they were going to be in their home town of Olomouc. We got the barest help in Prague with my wife's bad German on how to get there by train. Arrived, got a room, and called them up. For the next week they showed us around the country and visited family and friends.
Other than lousy waiters in Prague we had a terrific adventure. Different times.
But you sure had to able to demonstrate you had integrity in your agreements and were open to changes of plans.
pimlottc•Apr 5, 2026
What's amusing is that I've tried to do this nowadays, where I make plans with someone a few weeks in advance and then just show up. Only to have them not be there, and when I ask what happened, they said, "oh, I didn't think we were still doing that, you hadn't said anything about it in a while"
wolvoleo•Apr 5, 2026
It depends. My friends with kids have everything planned out months in advance. If they're to come out to something they have to have it all scheduled between judo classes and school birthday parties blah blah
The rest of us just wing it. Which I really prefer. I hate having plans. Especially in case I might not feel like it on the night in question.
smelendez•Apr 5, 2026
It’s kind of funny that business etiquette has moved much more to scheduled meetings even for short discussions, and social life has moved in the opposite direction.
megous•Apr 5, 2026
Czechia has a very dense public transport network and if you want to walk a very nice network of marked tourist tracks. Not that different form 1989, except for marking an explicit cycling network since then.
crazygringo•Apr 5, 2026
Yes, we need to.
If I'm meeting someone for drinks and then an emergency happens, I kind of want to know rather than waiting around for 45 minutes and then giving up.
markus_zhang•Apr 5, 2026
It's just to create a brand to attract targeted customers. If you really hate phones in restaurants you are going to stick to them. Not an issue for me TBH, it's their free choice. It's kinda difficult to compete in food quality and such, but rather easy to just create a brand. You see this kind of things in politics a lot.
Yeah gonna be downvoted, but whatever.
Acrobatic_Road•Apr 5, 2026
Yes! Phones should be treated like smoking.
wussboy•Apr 5, 2026
I like this idea. You can use your phone but you have to go outside to do it.
KellyCriterion•Apr 5, 2026
++1
raincole•Apr 5, 2026
To increase table turnover rate for the restaurant.
markus_zhang•Apr 5, 2026
Well if they don't want businesses from phone-carrying people that's perfectly fine with me.
Restaurants are too expensive anyway. A random breakfast in a random diner now costs around 60 CAD (include tax and tip) for two persons nowadays in my city. It is difficult to justify eating out unless I'm financially free.
hdbebdhdh•Apr 5, 2026
I don't get it. If you don't want to use a phone, simply don't use a phone O_o
Dig1t•Apr 5, 2026
If you all agree to not have phones, then the group social dynamic changes. You can't lean on your phone as a crutch when there's a lull in the conversation, you can't look up facts on the internet. So you're forced to think a little harder about things, to discuss a little more, be less distracted. It's fun for group outings.
28304283409234•Apr 5, 2026
If I had a bar I'd ban phones and call it The No Bars Bar. Alt: The Bar Without Bars
petcat•Apr 5, 2026
No need to ban phones, just coat the walls in magnetic paint and install faraday cages on the windows.
You will get "No bars". (and also maybe no customers and a safety code violation?)
drum55•Apr 5, 2026
Intentionally interfering with 911 would probably be a poor decision.
petcat•Apr 5, 2026
Oh yeah definitely. Also your own POS system probably wont even work unless it's hard-wired.
fragmede•Apr 5, 2026
Have staff/employee wifi for the PoS to use.
petcat•Apr 5, 2026
Wifi wont work at all (or at least be very packet-droppy) in this configuration
iamnothere•Apr 5, 2026
Passive interference like this isn’t illegal, although you might have a lawsuit if a customer gets injured and it takes a few extra seconds for someone to step outside and dial 911 (people will sue over anything). It’s active jamming that violates FCC regulations.
jmyeet•Apr 5, 2026
Jamming cell signals is illegal. There are good reasons for this such as people who are on call or people who need to call 911.
The only way around this is to build somewhere that happens to have no cell reception.
iamnothere•Apr 5, 2026
Passively blocking signals through absorptive materials is not jamming and is not illegal.
bawolff•Apr 5, 2026
Phone free resturants if you're eating alone sounds kind of miserable. Sometimes i want to read something while i wait for my food to come out.
Aboutplants•Apr 5, 2026
Good news! If your alone there are other options!
bawolff•Apr 5, 2026
Can you be specific what you mean by that. Are you just saying if you are alone you should go to other resturants?
I mean, sure that is true, but that logic would also apply to a resturant that spits in your food.
troymc•Apr 5, 2026
Maybe bring a (printed) book, brochure, flyer, or treatise on the nocturnal behaviours of silkworms?
bawolff•Apr 5, 2026
Do you commonly carry those around with you? I'm not mistaking a resturant for a library, i just want to kill time until my food comes out.
Is there a reason why someone sitting by themselves reading a book on the e-reader app on their phone is more offensive than someone sitting by themselves reading a dead tree book?
Acrobatic_Road•Apr 5, 2026
It's not hard to bring a book with you. People did it before phones.
And I don't know what you're doing when you're transfixed by your phone and I'm not going to peer over your screen to find out.
fc417fc802•Apr 5, 2026
You dodged the question. You don't know what he's using his phone for. Fair enough. Is there a reason that privately looking at the screen is offensive while privately looking at a book is not?
bluebarbet•Apr 5, 2026
>someone sitting by themselves reading a book on the e-reader app
I was this person. Eventually I gave it up because I didn't want to be mistaken for just another screen-addled zombie with no impulse control miserably scrolling Whatsapp and Instagram.
Perhaps I have too much self-awareness but I'd argue most people have too little.
fc417fc802•Apr 5, 2026
> ... I didn't want to be mistaken for ...
Who cares? They're strangers. If they want to make faulty assumptions and feel an unjustified smug sense of self superiority that's none of my business.
At this point I read ~all books on my phone as a simple matter of practicality. I'd prefer my phone had an epaper screen and grayscale page centric apps (instead of scrolling) but that's just not how things are.
crazygringo•Apr 5, 2026
When I think of places where phones aren't a problem, I think of bars and restaurants.
So why on earth would you even need to make them phone-free...?
People are socializing plenty. I've never walked into a bar or restaurant that's full of people where they're all on their phones. It doesn't even make sense.
Upvoter33•Apr 5, 2026
Really? I see this all the time. Maybe I'm going to all the wrong places. I see "couples" on their phones, I see groups of friends on their phones, etc., etc. Maybe different parts of the country / world?
mikkupikku•Apr 5, 2026
I don't see the problem; when you're out drinking with buddies, sometimes you're talking and sometimes staring at the sportsball TV in contemplative silence. Or a phone instead of the TV, it serves the same role. It doesn't have to be talk all the time. Somebody who's not talking now might have been talking a minute ago, and will be again in a few minutes.
gentleman11•Apr 5, 2026
How do you prevent people from having phones while inside?
Do you just get in trouble for whipping it out? Or do you have to drop it off with a phone valet at the entrance? If so, how do you prevent theft or mixups? Are all the staff comfortable confronting people who have taken their devices out, risking their tips and personal comfort levels? What if somebody gets cranky after being asked because they didn't know and it's halfway through dinner?
It's a tricky policy to enforce smoothly
yalogin•Apr 5, 2026
Phone/device free venues have to become a thing. Social media has taken a strong hold of people but the ai chat bots are upping the game even more. If anything phone free areas will become an incentive to visit these establishments for me
Dig1t•Apr 5, 2026
I am so surprised at the negativity about this idea in this thread. It's a novelty, and it's pretty fun, if you don't like the idea you can just go to the 99% of other bars or restaurants that do allow phones.
I personally like going to these types of places. When you go with a group of people it does change the social dynamic, not being able to ask ChatGPT the answer to a question you don't know off the top of your head, or scroll through your messages as a crutch when there's a lull in the conversation. Everyone is more fully engaged.
It's just a fun novelty, an experience you can't get elsewhere.
15 Comments
I opened this comment section because I was perplexed by the premise of the title and after scrolling a bit I remain entirely unable to comprehend the underlying motivations.
It's a meditative process to me. There's nothing better than sitting in a greasy spoon looking out at a rainy day eating bacon and hashbrowns while sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Just watching the world and gthe people go by while flipping and folding the pages of a large newspaper. That's bliss.
Now that newspapers aren't really a thing anymore I like to read the news on my phone, or a paper about a topic that interests me.
It's good to promote socializing as long as it doesn't come at the expensive at reflective processes.
I don't think reading news, especially on the phone, is meditative.
With paper you might pause & reflect while turning a page, with phone even that is lost.
> Just watching the world and the people go by while
Why not do that without looking at the phone?
So let's use a dictionary definition: meditative -- of, involving, or absorbed in meditation or considered thought.
In that context I have for decades now enjoyed sipping coffee, reading the news, and watching peope go by, smiling at the waitress, and considering how it all fits together. The cream in my cup, the man crossing the street, the price of tea in China -- it's all connected. Sometimes do this without a phone or a newspaper or a book. Sometimes I don't.
This is just how I like to spend my Sunday breakfast. Alone. Not talking to people. Watching them and the world.
I'm glad I pulled on that thread :)
I agree that a phone provides a suboptimal experience for this kind of thing.
I loved seeing the pile of newspapers that have already been rifled through by previous patrons who have finished their morning meal. Picking the exact paper or sections that I want, perhaps grabbing a finished section from an old man who has already sat down and made it half way through his morning breakfest ritual.
thumbing through the pages, holding the paper up to fold it over, putting it down on the table and pressing that edge of the with your thumb to make a sharp edge and then sipping your coffee.
There really is nothing like it.
If you then expect an exemption because your phone use is different then I challenge that you don’t actually support the experience.
If you want to read news in a phone-free environment: bring a newspaper, a kindle, etc.
Not every radio runs off 2.4G, the frequency that microwaves would affect. Even for wifi there's 5ghz and 6ghz bands. For cellphones there are far more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G_NR_frequency_bands
It degraded slowly over a decade. It's "stabilized" but just a bunch of word salad.
AFAIK they have to be grounded so it'll be a massive pain to install, even if you can get it printed.
If a Faraday cage blocks interstellar signals only if one part of it is stuck in a ball of mud and rock... well, I have some questions.
There is the possibility of the ground being a return path to the transmitter, but if that were effective, radio infrastructure would interfere world-wide, and you could transmit through the earth's core. And even that argument would suggest that the Faraday cage should be floating, not grounded.
Perhaps some well placed metallic material on or near the windows would suffice?
At $200/gallon, the cost of the paint would also be a major consideration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5BOFsiDpYQ
Not so much of a fan of this in bars and restaurants, sometimes you need to stay in touch with friends who are still arriving etc. Or often they change their mind "this place is cool, why don't you come to us instead of us coming to you?". But ok plenty of places to choose from.
Do we need to? We are way too communicative now days. Back before everyone had cell phones, you said on Monday to friends and/or co-workers, "Let's get drinks on Friday at 7pm at BarClub" - Everyone put it in their diary, and on Friday at 6:55-7:30, people showed up where they were supposed to.
We now have this anxiety around not being in constant contact with people, when just a couple decades ago, we wouldn't talk to a person for days/weeks at a time, but still manage to get together without (m)any issues.
But I think it’s okay to appreciate the world around you and spend time being present while waiting for someone. We used to do this all the time. People watching is fun.
There's another aspect: these days most people don't like being told what to do. When it infringes on other people's lives like making photos I understand but anything else nope.
I couldn't imagine working in an army either. I'd never let them get away with barking at me.
If you don't trust your chain of command, then there are issues. But militaries are decidedly not democracies, because the military often requires swift action, and democracies move slowly by design.
There's talk of bringing military service back in my country but I would honestly prefer fighting my own country than the enemy.
I hope more people are going to be like that when they implement it.
(I am exaggerating, and in the sense of pleasure there are obviously submissive people, etc., but you get my point, I think)
But being on your mobile somewhere is more of a "you do you" thing for me. I'm not always on my phone, when I go out I don't go near it normally but getting a quick message is no problem IMO. For example when plans change. When others are on phones around me I don't find that very annoying, there's much more annoying behaviour.
Personally I hate planning and love chaos so I really like this thing where I see someone online at 2am and they're like "hey why don't you come out to this club". Which happens fairly often.
On the agreed-to date and time we were there, and so was she.
If we were talk about paper maps, it would blow people's minds. If we were to get further in the weeds and describe how we traveled around communist Czechoslovakia w/o a map, only a phrasebook entitled "Travelers Czech", well...
Ah I forgot! We, without being specific about the date, knew that other college friends of ours, originally from Czechoslovakia, had told us they were going to be in their home town of Olomouc. We got the barest help in Prague with my wife's bad German on how to get there by train. Arrived, got a room, and called them up. For the next week they showed us around the country and visited family and friends.
Other than lousy waiters in Prague we had a terrific adventure. Different times.
But you sure had to able to demonstrate you had integrity in your agreements and were open to changes of plans.
The rest of us just wing it. Which I really prefer. I hate having plans. Especially in case I might not feel like it on the night in question.
If I'm meeting someone for drinks and then an emergency happens, I kind of want to know rather than waiting around for 45 minutes and then giving up.
Yeah gonna be downvoted, but whatever.
Restaurants are too expensive anyway. A random breakfast in a random diner now costs around 60 CAD (include tax and tip) for two persons nowadays in my city. It is difficult to justify eating out unless I'm financially free.
You will get "No bars". (and also maybe no customers and a safety code violation?)
The only way around this is to build somewhere that happens to have no cell reception.
I mean, sure that is true, but that logic would also apply to a resturant that spits in your food.
Is there a reason why someone sitting by themselves reading a book on the e-reader app on their phone is more offensive than someone sitting by themselves reading a dead tree book?
And I don't know what you're doing when you're transfixed by your phone and I'm not going to peer over your screen to find out.
I was this person. Eventually I gave it up because I didn't want to be mistaken for just another screen-addled zombie with no impulse control miserably scrolling Whatsapp and Instagram.
Perhaps I have too much self-awareness but I'd argue most people have too little.
Who cares? They're strangers. If they want to make faulty assumptions and feel an unjustified smug sense of self superiority that's none of my business.
At this point I read ~all books on my phone as a simple matter of practicality. I'd prefer my phone had an epaper screen and grayscale page centric apps (instead of scrolling) but that's just not how things are.
So why on earth would you even need to make them phone-free...?
People are socializing plenty. I've never walked into a bar or restaurant that's full of people where they're all on their phones. It doesn't even make sense.
Do you just get in trouble for whipping it out? Or do you have to drop it off with a phone valet at the entrance? If so, how do you prevent theft or mixups? Are all the staff comfortable confronting people who have taken their devices out, risking their tips and personal comfort levels? What if somebody gets cranky after being asked because they didn't know and it's halfway through dinner?
It's a tricky policy to enforce smoothly
I personally like going to these types of places. When you go with a group of people it does change the social dynamic, not being able to ask ChatGPT the answer to a question you don't know off the top of your head, or scroll through your messages as a crutch when there's a lull in the conversation. Everyone is more fully engaged.
It's just a fun novelty, an experience you can't get elsewhere.