Bar culture has changed dramatically in recent years. Since the age of cell phones and smartphones, people have not been so busy – a common complaint among bartenders everywhere. To solve this riddle, a bar decided to block cell service and virtually force customers to speak to each other.
Do you think that sounds crazy? It is somehow. At The Gin Tub in Hove, England, landlord Steve Tyler built a cage around the building to disrupt cellular service. He even went so far as to wrap the walls in aluminum foil and stick copper wire mesh to the ceiling.
“I saw it getting worse and I thought, ‘I want to stop,'” he told the BBC. “I want people to meet with the people they are with rather than the people they are not with.”
And there is a reason why he didn’t go out and buy an official cell phone jammer. “I made the brave decision not to block the signal with a jammer, but to make it as good as possible with a Faraday cage and to get people to talk to each other,” he said. “And to be honest, it worked very well.”
But if you are worried that you will be cut off from the outside world during your whiskey, don’t be afraid: Tyler plans to name an outdoor area for cell phone use, similar to an outside smoking area. And of course the bar is equipped with a landline for emergency calls.
So far, the answer has been all positive. “I had a complaint from a customer and it was they got a signal,” said Tyler. “We took her to another table.” Imagine that.