Annoyance of the week
April 7th, 2009 by Cliff Bostock in Food & Life, RestaurantsMy new petty annoyance is restaurants that do not provide wireless internet service (Wi-Fi). Among them is Taqueria del Sol on Cheshire Bridge, where I lunched recently.
I asked owner Mike Klank and manager George “The Taco Nazi” Trusler why the restaurant doesn’t provide Wi-Fi, which costs next-to-nothing.
Mike shrugged and George snapped, “I don’t want it. It will just keep people longer at their tables.”
This is the usual explanation I hear. More questioning almost always reveals that they picture people camping at their tables with laptops like they do at coffee shops. I in turn explain that just about everyone carries a hand-held device today, like my I-Touch, and I’ve never been in any restaurant with Wi-Fi that was full of people dawdling over dinner while chatting on laptops. Mike and George looked at me rather blankly.
Of course, restaurateurs who refuse to install Wi-Fi may be avoiding altercations at the table. Last week, when I logged on to check my e-mail while lunching with friends, they threatened to put a fork in my head. “Are we that boring?” one asked. Hey, at least I wasn’t gabbing on my cell phone.
April 7th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Fiddling with an email device at the table seems like poor manners to me, just like using the phone.
April 7th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Are you kidding me? Annoyed that Taqueria del Sol doesn’t provide Wi-Fi? It’s a restaurant, not a f***ing yuppie coffee shop. Please, if that’s what you want, take your oh-so-important device to Starbuck’s. They welcome lingerers all day long.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Are you serious, Cliff?
I wish more coffee shops didn’t offer free wifi, never mind restaurants. Leave the damn laptop at home for once.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
TDS doesnt even offer high chairs for familes…why would they offer wi-fi…i saw a baby fall out of a chair one night…all they care about is getting you in and getting you out…oh and those at the bar.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I’m with you Cliff. Wi-fi should be more widespread.
But we should not be surprised by gruff/rude attitudes from TDS. I love their food but rarely go there as I refuse to give my money to people who treat others like cr@p.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:47 am
omg i saw a baby fall out of a chair too. they are the worst. i’ll never understand the long lines just to have meidocre tacos thrown at you with bad service. if i need a taco at lunch on cheshire i’ll usually hit up acapulco down the street. fresh chips, guac, horchata and decent tacos for half the price of taqueria. there is also no line.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:46 am
I am really not in favor of having free wi-fi everywhere, but I figure that soon enough, there will be a giant free wi-fi bubble over Buckhead, and it won’t be an issue any more.
Now, if only we could get rid of people who hog tables with their laptops, insisting to be seated with an incomplete party for hours while the waiting list of hungry people piles up at the door. . .
April 8th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Of all the places on the planet, I would think TDS would be the last to get wi-fi. Surprised that this is a shock to you, Cliff.
I actually love that TDS is so rigid. I do take my kids but know -and follow – the rules. No sitting down early, no high chairs, etc. The system works. Perfectly. Why change it?
April 8th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I am with Edward; I understand the necessity for coffee shops to have wi-fi, but at the same time I am completely against it. Speaking as a former long term Atlanta barista, I find it incomprehensible, annoying, and rude.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:33 am
My new petty annoyance is people who think that it’s acceptable to pull out their computers at any time and in any place (and who, when unable to do so, feel that their rights have somehow been violated)
April 8th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
If wifi should not be available for your Iphone or Blackberry, why should cellphones be permitted in restaurants?
Do you really think it’s more annoying for me to check my email in a restaurant than to get on the phone and gab out loud?
Just as I described, many of you are conflating laptops with handheld devices. Of course, I do not think people should camp at restaurant tables with their laptops. That’s hardly the same as checking my email on my I-touch.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I say as long as you are not bothering diners at tables in your vicinity, play around on your laptop, BB, iphone, itouch, etc., etc. as much as you want. That said, I do think it’s rude to linger on any of these devices after your table has been cleared. Especially if there are customers waiting for a table.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
How can a restaurant as a practical matter distinguish among big laptops, small laptops, the new “netbooks,” handheld devices, phones large and small, video games, etc.? There’s an ever-expanding array of electronic devices of all shapes and sizes, none of which should be used in most restaurant situations.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I agree, Lois.
Well, Lorenzo, then you better pass the word to the many restaurants that do supply free wi-fi.
Since so many already do and since I have received no reports of people inappropriately camping at tables on laptops, it would appear that either the restaurants are enforcing a policy against wi-fi loitering or — surely not — the public is savvy enough to know that it’s not cool to overstay their welcome to play on the Internet.
I wonder, too, how the restaurants would feel about losing all those business lunches where people depend on their laptops and handhelds to share information.
Making restaurants oases in a world of burgeoning information technology is a strange concept.
Check out this video:
http://tinyurl.com/c2lo2k
April 9th, 2009 at 9:03 am
maybe you should get an iphone instead of a touch….3g…my blackberry doesnt rely on wifi to check email…
April 9th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Is it just me or does TDS seem to have complete disdain for its customers? I really believe that they relish in the fact that it takes forever to place your order and that lines stretch into the parking lot. I mean, how difficult would it be to open a 2nd register? I love their food, but I am finding it hard to justify spending my money at a place that hates their customers so much.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I agree, Greg! TDS’ food is just not good enough to justify the way they treat customers. Not only does the line stretch into the parking lot, it is more of a mob inside the door, making eating at the nearby tables really unpleasant.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Think about it for a second it might come to you. See the problem with opening a second register yet?
April 9th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
“Well, Lorenzo, then you better pass the word to the many restaurants that do supply free wi-fi.” Well, Cliff, I don’t disagree that that’s the restaurant’s prerogative. Sadly, as you point out, a restaurant can allow and even encourage people to talk and type on their little devices to their hearts’ content because the restaurant believes that the effect on their bottom line of pleasing self-important business lunchers and techno-hipsters outweighs the effect of annoying other patrons.
“Making restaurants oases in a world of burgeoning information technology is a strange concept.” Sad but true. Even greasy spoon lunch joints used to be oases of civility. You’d leave the office behind, have a nice lunch away from it all, then go back recharged for the afternoon. No longer.
By the way, TDS doesn’t make the best example of a restaurant for this discussion, as it is indeed the sort of casual but hip place where one might (sadly) expect to see people tapping away on tiny keyboards and talking into their phones. As I said above, “most restaurant situations.” Heck, even I have been known to plant myself in a coffeehouse with a laptop or my iPhone.
April 9th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Well, I can say for sure that I’ll think twice about whipping out my I-touch in the future after reading the comments here. :)
I didn’t expect this thread to turn into a commentary on TDS, by the way. But I doubt they’d have lines out the door if people didn’t find the food good. You always have the option of eating at the bar if there’s a vacancy there, rather than waiting in line. That’s what I always do.
I didn’t get an I-phone, wifi, because AT&T doesn’t work at our weekend place. But my first objective, anyway, was music to make cardio at the gym more tolerable.
April 10th, 2009 at 9:02 am
what does a line have to do with good food? there is half mile line around krystal everynight around 3. i always find a line highly suspicious. tds is the magnolia bakery of atlanta. wait doesn’t krystal have free wifi? now if only they had a chicken finger taco.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
“Since so many already do and since I have received no reports of people inappropriately camping at tables on laptops, it would appear that either the restaurants are enforcing a policy against wi-fi loitering or — surely not — the public is savvy enough to know that it’s not cool to overstay their welcome to play on the Internet.”
Well, consider this your first report, then. This is coming from someone who works at a very busy Buckhead restaurant that does not supply free wi-fi, and yet we *still* get people camping with laptops. Not only do people not know that it’s not cool to overstay their welcome, they actually plan ahead in order to do it.
Our restaurant goes on a wait every single meal period, and people are well aware of this, so they arrive plenty early to hold a table and wait for a “friend” – why any friend would make someone wait alone at a restaurant for hours on end is still a mystery to me – and then they use laptops or other wireless devices with internet cards in order to hog a table and be rude to their servers.
We actually state on the menu that we don’t allow cell phone use in the restaurant, and yet customers still walk in, mid-conversation, insist on being seated while refusing to actually speak to the hostess, because that would require getting off the phone. And then, when the server attempts to greet the table, they snap, “Um, I’m *on the phone!*”
The only person I’ve heard complain that we don’t have wi-fi was a man who came in about 15 minutes before we opened and then proceeded to camp at a table for an hour and 45 minutes while he waited for his “business associate.” He ordered a cheeseburger and a glass of water, stayed through the entire lunch period, before, during and after we went on a wait, and his business associate (when she finally arrived) ordered a club sandwich. They cost the restaurant at least 2-3 table turns, only ordered a little over $20 worth of food and tipped poorly.
The only happy ending to this story is that he promised that he’d never return again.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Sorry. I forgot to note that the only restaurants for which free wi-fi makes sense are those that never, ever go on a wait in these dire economic times. If any customers at all is better than no customers, then sure, free wi-fi doesn’t cost very much to provide. But if you happen to have one of the places that’s still drawing a crowd these days, that “free” wi-fi is most likely just going to cost you a table that could be making you money.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Foodgeek: Thanks for the report. If laptops have such a negative impact on your business, why do you allow them?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I think the answer lies with the current culture’s sense of entitlement and need to be “online” most of the time. My former place of employment held out for the longest time with wi-fi because of the antics Foodgeek has described. People expect to have wi-fi when all you should expect is excellent service, product and experience. I am relieved when I go to places and don’t see a laptop or twelve. (Right now I am aiming towards coffeehouses and bars—which I really don’t get!—and similar.)
I myself love teh Internetz, but don’t feel the need to park myself somewhere public to enjoy it.
Also most businesses at this point seem to be shamed into having wi-fi. Either lose punters or gain punters who sit there for hours and still lose money either way.
Just my 2 cents, is all.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I’m sorry, but to me this is like complaining about about TVs in bars and restaurants. They annoy the hell out of me but people expect them. The world is changing. Oh my.
But I must indeed be eating in the wrong restaurants because I have been nowhere that I’ve seen people sitting around killing time on the internet — at least not in numbers that could seriously affect sales.
People have been conducting business over lunch for as long as I can remember, so the presence of a laptop then is just a tool in that scenario. It’s not an amusement that changes anything but the aesthetics.
If, as y’all say, people are really going into Buckhead restaurants and sitting for inordinate periods of time in front of their laptops and you think it decreases your sales, then why in the world wouldn’t you ban them or establish a limit? As I said, I don’t find silent use of a laptop or Blackberry nearly as annoying as people gabbing on phones or Blue Tooth devices that make them look like schizophrenics talking to the air.
As for the uses of laptops in coffeehouses, Kali, I’m mystified by your attitude. This is not a new development in the culture. Ten years ago, when I was commuting monthly to LA, coffeehouses served as people’s mobile offices all over town.
Now, here, just as there, actual communities develop around individual coffeehouses because of this phenomenon. (I’ve watched this happen for seven years at the Ansley STarbucks.) It is hard for me to believe anyone regards this as bad for business in the long term.
Of course, it’s a shift in the service model, I guess — just like the ubiquity of cell phones and flat-screen TVs.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Cliff, i love ya. You are my favorite creative loafing writer but you sound like a smoker trying to explain why its ok to smoke indoors. I do see some of your points though and i dont really see how its much different than bringing a newpaper (remember those?) with you. But people are rude and inconsiderate. You give them an inch and they take a mile.
PS
I am not shocked at all that rude behavior like that is happening in Buckhead.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I think the acceptance of “mobile offices” definitely points to a shift in current thinking. No one ever turns off. Is it completely necessary? I reserve the same attitude for cell phones/Blackberries/iPhones as well.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I do think that some restaurants are not offering free wi-fi out of an abundance of caution. Lots of restaurant goers in Atlanta have no manners and are extremely rude (witness any recent, arrogant, thuggish crowd at Flip or any hot restaurant of the moment)…you give them an inch and they would take a mile. I think a lot of restaurants realize this and are frightened perhaps.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
LOL@Adam. Thanks for the compliment. I’m definitely among the Internet-addicted and, as I said earlier, probably defensive about this. And, I might add, my partner takes his laptop to dinner with us now and then, so compelling is the task of his dissertation, 10 years in the writing. (My eyes are rolling.) He is not browsing the Internet, but looking at numbers.
Still, I can’t compare staring at my Itouch or blogging at Starbucks to smoking. I understand that the invasion of laptops creates a different aesthetic and I understand that many of you would rather people not be inhabiting cyberspace and the coffeeshop at the same time. But the tone of your objections amount to that of my own contrary expectation: annoyance. Or dare I say “crankiness”? As in “Get off my lawn!” Anyway, I’m not going to stop eating at Taqueria del Sol because they don’t have wi-fi.
As to your observation that nobody ever turns off, Kali, some are even taking that further:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/04/14/twitter.study/index.html
The notion that Twittering is causing moral decay makes me laugh. It reminds me of the kind of thing people said about Elvis and the Beatles.
As y’all know, or I guess you do, I also work in psychology. One of the things I have done with a growing number of clients is get them to start writing blogs. Sometimes these are public but more often they are just between me and the client.
I make assignments, either imagistic or written, and they reply. You would be surprised how much information arises in that medium that doesn’t in the consulting room or in ordinary writing. It seems to be an effect of the medium itself.
If you are interested in how occupancy of cyberspace might enhance experience rather than restrain it, you might want to look at these videos from Toronto, especially “Out of the Fishbowl”:
http://www.richmondculturalseminars.com
What you are observing in coffeehouses and elsewhere is a transformation of public space but you would be quite wrong to presume that it is necessarily depersonifying or disembodying.
I know, I know…I sound like a smoker. But, really, look deeper. I used to feel the same way, but then I lit up, I mean turned on, I mean fell down the rabbit hole….
April 16th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Trust me, I would love to forbid laptops in the restaurant. In the past, we have taken a very controversial stance against cell phone usage in the dining room, and I was even allowed to ask violators to step into the lobby or outside while they finished their conversations. However, the rise of cell phone technology has made it such that turning away people who won’t stop gabbing is impractical.
The only thing we can do now is to refuse to greet someone who is obviously in conversation. No, I’m not going to learn your new sign language gesture for “I want a Coke,” just because you can’t take the phone away from your ear for 2 seconds. Really, controlling the behavior of guests is not an easy proposition, and any time you step in and try to stop people from rudely disturbing other people’s dining experience, you risk being called rude for trying to reign them in. It’s all we can do to say a few, very polite words to mothers with shrieking children.
As far as comparisons to reading a newspaper, I’ve never seen anyone camp out at a table with a newspaper while a restaurant was on a wait. I have seen couples avoid talking to each other or even looking at one another with a newspaper, but that’s just making a spectacle of one’s self and inviting others to ponder why the hell you two don’t just get divorced already.
I have seen people camp in front of televisions, of course, but that’s why we only have 2 small TVs, located in the bar area, so that we can consciously limit that sort of behavior. No such limit seems feasible for laptops and other such devices, so all we can do is aggressively and obtrusively manicure everything off of the table when a patron has long outstayed his welcome. Many patrons are oblivious to this, unfortunately.
Yes, I’d love to ban all rude people from our restaurant, but I’m afraid that then I’d have far fewer people left to wait on.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I too take on that sort of action with people on their cell phones. It is amazingly rude to attempt to order something whilst in a conversation. Even when there is clearly a sign that says PLEASE NO CELL PHONES WHEN ORDERING AT THE COUNTER, people ignore it because of course, it can’t possibly mean them, can it? I mean, they are so important so it must be those OTHER people. My fellow employees ignored their idiotic hand gestures and indecipherable fishmouthing and simply went on to the next customer, who was waiting behind that person, frustrated and sympathetic. Ironically, I find it interesting that we were called out as being “rude”.
My mother raised me with manners and even as a mom who has barely gotten the hang of cell phones, she simply refuses to take or continue calls if she is a situation where she interacts with another person. I do the same. I do not think it unreasonable for people to relearn common decency in order to follow suit.
Uh, sorry. That rant went wittered on it more than I intended.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Yay! “These days, only a Luddite would ban iPhones from conversation”
http://www.chow.com/stories/11624?tag=sidebar;columns
(Besha sent me that.)
April 16th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Here’s my thinking:
1. some customers have always been jerks. it isn’t the cell phone’s or laptop’s fault that some people just don’t know how to act.
2. as far as laptop use in coffee houses go, I thought it was kosher to do your homework at coffee places. I like to go on weekends and I’ll usually get a couple of drinks while I’m there. if I’m writing a paper, I’ll take my laptop. does that really bother people? I wouldn’t stay if there were people waiting on a table…
April 17th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
“1. some customers have always been jerks. it isn’t the cell phone’s or laptop’s fault that some people just don’t know how to act.”
Agreed. I think that technology has enabled people to become more rude, or perhaps, rude with technological efficiency applied to their rudeness, allowing them to apply rude applications in wider circles that affect more people. But yes, the basic idea is still the same.
When it comes to laptops in coffee houses, I don’t have a problem with it, but I don’t work in a coffee house. I remember a boyfriend I had in college who told me once, after I said I was going to the University library to study for a test, “Go to the Friendly restaurant around the corner, order a cup of coffee, then stay as long as you like and study, get free refills, spread out your books and finish what you have to do.”
This advice, at the age of 19, when I’d never ever worked in a restaurant, was unfathomable to me. Why would I want to take up a table in someone’s station for a dollar cup of coffee, have someone continue to serve me for whatever length of time, just to have a quiet (but not really that quiet, if the restaurant got busy. After all, the serve ice cream, so what if a bunch of kids come in to eat ice cream?) study session, when I could go to the library and do all that for free, with the cost of an (admittedly lousy) cup of vending machine coffee, while not bothering anyone or costing anyone any lost income?
Honestly, I don’t get it.