Working lunch

Is a restaurant ever justified in telling people to get off their laptops?

Ever since I began to earn enough money to pay for restaurant meals, I have enjoyed the experience of going out to eat with myself. In the pre-smartphone era, I would take a book along, try and bag a window table, and graze for a couple of hours while entertaining myself with a spot of people-watching interspersed with reading (with some sneaky eavesdropping on neighbouring tables providing some food for thought!). When I stopped working in an office, and got a bit stir-crazy writing in the solitude of my study, I would often head out with my laptop to do a bit of writing while grabbing a sandwich and coffee. And more recently, it is my smartphone that keeps me occupied, whether it is answering emails, scrolling social media, or just reading a book on my Kindle app.

 

I have done this sort of thing for decades, all over the world, in restaurants both expensive and cheap, fancy and fuss-free, and I have never been made to feel that I was making a nuisance of myself, by working on a laptop, an Ipad, or even my phone. So, it came as a bit of surprise to read on X that a restaurant in Delhi had told a female single diner not to work on her laptop as she waited for her meal. This being X, there were heated opinions on both sides of the debate, with some saying that restaurants had the right to ban laptops and others – like me – saying that such prohibitions should be stated upfront and not sprung on guests after they have ordered. 

 

Of course, restaurants have the right to lay down rules about what guests are allowed (or not allowed) to do. Equally, guests have the right to vote with their feet and not go back to restaurants that make them feel unwelcome. But the more I thought about it, the more the laptop ban made no sense. The argument goes that if you allow people to work on laptops then the ambience of the restaurant changes and it becomes like a co-working place. But given how technology works these days, you can do the same kind of work on an Ipad and a smartphone, so why just discriminate against laptop users? And if you are committed to not letting your restaurant turn into a co-working place, then are you going to police your guests’ smartphone usage and make sure that they are not actually doing any work while they wait for their entrée to be served? 

 

And what would be allowed and disallowed? Is it verboten to answer emails but responding to a Whatsapp message is fine? Is scrolling through Instagram allowed but working on a presentation forbidden? A book is ok but Facebook marketplace is not?

 

Frankly, this makes zero sense. And if you ask me, rather than police the use of laptops at the table, restaurants would be better off ensuring that people use their devices with due consideration to others. I have lost count of the number of times I have sat at a restaurant while people at the next table watched video shorts or listened to music clips without the benefit of headphones. Instead of banishing laptops, how about we prohibit noise pollution like this? 

 

Now, that’s a ban I could get on board with.