Genius: at this Italian restaurant, you get a free bottle of wine if you hand in your phone
A real mood killer during a meal at a restaurant? If your date is a major red flag. Or if your companions bring noisy children, and the restaurant turns into a daycare. But also: using your phone at the table. It’s simply not very sociable and even a little rude, right? An Italian restaurant in Verona came up with a genius solution to that last problem. If you hand in your phone before dinner, you get a free bottle of wine.
Now, if that were also my reward for cleaning the house, my boyfriend would never have to nag me again. I’m going to suggest it tonight.
No screen time = plenty of wine time
The restaurant that introduced the wine-in-exchange-for-your-phone rule is the Italian restaurant Al Condominio in Verona. The restaurant has lockers where guests can store their phones. If they hand the key to the waiter, he or she pours the free bottle of wine for them. The owner, Angelo Lella, tells The Guardian that the restaurant wanted to ‘be different from others’. “It’s not necessary to look at your phone every 5 seconds. (…) This way, you can put your phone aside and enjoy a good glass of wine.”
The restaurant doesn’t force anyone to give up their phone, by the way. The choice is entirely up to the guest. But the concept is proving hugely popular: 90% of guests choose to put their phone in the locker.
A tasty reward
Al Condominio rewards its guests in another way too. Every guest can write a review on a slip of paper and leave it in a box in the restaurant. Guests with the most glowing reviews receive a free meal on their next visit. Woohoo, when can we go?!
Also read:
- 25x our favourite Italian recipes
- 10 of the most underrated food destinations according to chefs
- The best Italian restaurants in Amsterdam
Sources: Upcoming, The Guardian
