First Restaurant To Ban Use Of Mobile Phones While Eating

News Desk

Japan: The trend of using mobile phones has increased so much that people are on the phone even while eating, in view of which a restaurant in Japan called Debu-Chan has banned customers from using mobile phones while eating.

The owner of a noodle restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, took this tradition so seriously that he started timing how long it took his customers to start eating.

The restaurant owner noticed that the people who took the longest to finish bowls of hot soup were usually watching videos on their phones, which led the restaurant owner to react. And banning the use of mobile phones while eating.

A Japanese citizen named Kota Kai owns a restaurant called ‘Debu-Chan’– Japanese for “chubby” – which will celebrate its fifth anniversary this June.

In March, he decided to ban customers from using their smartphones while eating during busy times, a move that became a hot topic of conversation on social media in Japan.

The restaurant owner said, “Once, when we were busy with work, we noticed that a person had food placed in front of him, but he did not start eating for four minutes because he was watching videos on his mobile, so his food got cold in front.”

The restaurant owner says that the thin noodles they serve are only one millimetre wide, so they expand and spoil very quickly, given that waiting four minutes will result in spoiled food.

“When the seats are full and I see people leaving their food while looking at their smartphones, I ask them to stop,” said the owner.

He added that he did not put up any announcements asking people to hang up but instead spoke to customers individually.