This New York City Restaurant Prohibits Cell Phone Use — And The Customers Don’t Mind

Most eating places, particularly in aggressive cities like New York, do the whole lot feasible to delight their clients. Giving the customers what they want is the standard mantra.

But don’t tell that to Mario Gigliotti, the owner of Il Triangolo, a neighborhood Italian eatery located in Corona, Queens, one of the outlying boroughs of New York City, reached by a bridge or tunnel from Manhattan. There are several subway stops from Citi Field, where the New York Mets play, and Flushing Meadows, the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

Gigliotti, who’s fifty-two, opened Il Triangolo in April 2011. It makes a specialty of Southern Italian meals, and he created some of the recipes together with homemade fettuccini ala Triangolo, bird Frangelico, and shrimp limoncello. It seats around 60 people. He owns a cellphone sold for him using his daughter and thinks they’re a beneficial gadget for ordering items.

But again, in 2014, while cellular telephone use began proliferating and maximum of his clients started taking out their smartphones at some stage in their food, Gigliotti became angry. He noticed that “human beings weren’t paying attention to their meals, their environment or their circle of relatives participants.” No longer had been his clients conversing; they sat there and ate and checked their cell telephones as if they were eating alone.

In reality, their behavior slowed the whole thing down within the eating place. Instead of eating and leaving quickly, they’d spend extra time consuming because they weren’t focusing on eating their meals and, as a substitute, zeroed in on checking their emails or the internet.  Meals that once took hours were taking and a 1/2 hours, and visitors had been ready longer for a table.

Gigliotti positioned up a small sign that said no mobile phones located at the desk. When he encountered new clients, he’d inform them in individual approximately the policy. If customers receive a cellphone call throughout the meal, they’re asked to step outdoors of the eating place to no longer disturb any visitors. Almost everybody complies.

Several years ago, one female objected. She said she needed to keep in touch with her aged mom in case of an emergency. Gigliotti requested that she hold her cellphone on her lap, not at the table, but she refused and left the eating place. When any other couple heard approximately the coverage, they too exited before consuming. However, Gigliotti said that has handiest occurred a handful of instances.

More human beings inform him that they love the policy because they don’t need to overhear different visitors speakme loudly on their cellphone over the eating place’s din. “Most humans in a restaurant on their phones have an addiction to speaking loud,” Gigliotti said. Most guests are delighted no longer to address rude visitors sitting in proximity to them.

I observe numerous Yelp opinions well-known shows that no clients negatively mentioned the mobile phone ban, and one patron welcomed it. One visitor said, “The minute you arrive, it’s as though Mario, the owner, welcomes the visitor into his home.” Another visitor stated, Il Triangolo emphasizes “authenticity from homemade bread and pasta to selfmade wine and desserts.” Banning mobile phones attracted one guest to the eating place.

Repeat enterprise is as robust as ever. “They preserve coming back.  I have a huge following and keep in mind lots of our visitors part of the Triangolo circle of relatives,” he notes.

There are a few different regulations. People aren’t authorized to place their sports jackets on their chairs; no undershirts or slippers are allowed within the dining room. “We’re antique faculty,” he admits.

And but Gigliotti says the whole team of workers prides itself on its flexible policy towards meals—the primary purpose why diners come to the eating place. “Guests can mix and match something they want.  If there’s something you need, we’ll make it for you,” he says.

Most human beings end their dinner quicker via keeping off mobile phones, and Gigliotti sees a trade of their conduct under the ban. “Now they take a seat down; I inform them the specials and that they’re now not on the cellphone. They have a look at the menu. I take their dinner order. Without the mobile phone in their fingers, that system isn’t controlling them any more. When you’re having dinner together with your buddies or family, it’s time to position your cellphone away,” he says.

“Now, while the food comes, they’re talking to every different about the food,” he exclaims. “We cater to our clients, and a maximum of our visitors love this coverage,” he says.