It’s a common picture, a group of people sitting at a table for dinner with all the common tools in hand: fork, knife and of course, the cell phone.

A Los Angeles restaurant looks to break down the walls that seem to be getting in the way of the intimate dining experience by offering a 5% discount to patrons who check their phone at the door.

The discount will be in effect at LA-based Eva Restaurant, where owner and chef Mark Gold is hoping the initiative will allow customers to sit back, relax and interact with their meal and table mates without outside distractions.

“It’s about two people sitting together anhad just connecting, without the distraction of a phone, and we’re trying to create an ambiance where you come in and really enjoy the experience and the food and the company,” Gold tells Southern California Public Radio.

I’m not sure if the 5% discount is enough for people to be away from the rest of the world for an hour, but Gold mentions that a little less than half their patrons take advantage of the deal.

The discount seems like a nod back to a fun viral game from earlier in the year called Phone Stacking, which involved all folks dining together to stack their phones in the middle of the table at the beginning of the meal, and the first person to reach for their phone to check a call, message, or e-mail would have to pay the bill for the entire party.

The theme remains the same, regardless of the novelty act — should we be disconnecting from our phones during our dining sessions?

It’d be ignorant of me to preach the idea of leaving your phone in the car. I’m the dude at dinner who checks his Instagram for updates between bites and God forbid my date goes to the bathroom and leaves me alone at the table — my phone is the only thing left keeping me from looking like a loner dining alone.

But on those rare nights where your phone’s battery dies, or you left that iPhone in your jacket, which happens to be in your car — those few hours where you’re forced to fully immerse yourself in conversation without falling back on the safety of your phone, are beautiful, to say the least.

So why don’t we do it more often? Why don’t we leave our phones in the car during dinner, turn them off when we’re with our families for the night, or just turn them off when we go to sleep if it feels so refreshing to do so?

I don’t have the answer to that, but it’s fun initiatives like Eva Restaurant’s 5% discount and Phone Stacking that periodically brings back up the discussion, even incentivize the idea of not using your phone in social situations.

What are your thoughts on cell phone usage during dinner? Should more restaurants provide discounts like this, or is that ridiculous and unnecessary? Speak on it in the comments!

Elie AyrouthTwitterFacebook

Elie is a product of Orange County, CA. In early 2012, his dentist diagnosed him with 8 different cavities, three of which on the same tooth, as a result of his 23-year Sour Patch Kid addiction.