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A Chick-fil-A is offering ice cream to lock your phone away

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Some Chick-fil-A restaurants have offered a free cone if you give up your phone.

A Maryland location says it’ll provide diners with a place to put their phones while they eat. At the end, everyone at the table gets an ice-cream cone as a reward. They’re calling it the “Cell Phone Coop Challenge.”

“Are you up for the challenge?” The Chick-fil-A at Towson Place asked its Facebook followers.

The Towson restaurant tells diners to ask an employee for the container to put their phones inside and on silent, and enjoy their meal without technology.

“Grab the coop, and take the challenge,” a poster reads.

Two Georgia locations owned by Brad Williams offered the challenge in 2016 and brought it back in January. Business Insider spoke to employees on Monday, who said the promotion was temporary and no longer in effect.

Williams spoke to a local ABC outlet for a story published in 2016 about the promotion, saying it was inspired by a woman who spent her entire meal on her cellphone instead of communicating with the children dining with her.

“It just got me thinking how to get people to disconnect in order to connect and to take a technology timeout,” Williams told ABC. “Be present where your feet are.”

He said at the time that the promotion had been adopted by at least 200 other operators at their own restaurants.

On Monday, Business Insider called locations in California, New York, New Jersey, and the Washington, D.C. area, but didn’t find any other participating locations.

As technology becomes embedded in everyday life, some people have resorted to “dumb phones” — those without apps or wifi — or “bricking” their phone with devices designed to disconnect their smartphones from the outside world.

At least one Chick-fil-A location is providing a sweet incentive to give them up altogether.

Chick-fil-A and Williams didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.




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Katie Notopoulos

Coming off your parents’ family phone plan doesn’t make you an adult

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Before you yell at me, let me first say that I am not, and have never been, on my parents’ cellphone plan. (I didn’t get a cellphone until I was already an adult.) But I’ve long been jealous of my friends who are still on their parents’ plans — it just makes good sense!

Yahoo News recently asked whether staying on your parents’ phone plan as a 40-year-old makes you “a harmless mooch or a generational failure?”

The reporter, Fortesa Latifi, admits that she and her husband were still on their parents’ plans until recently, and that many others are like her, some even with children of their own, and quite a few feel embarrassed about it.

There are significant savings to be had by joining a family plan. For example, right now, at T-Mobile, its unlimited talk, text, and data plan costs $85 for an individual plan. For a family of four, the same plan is around $42 per person.

Why are family plans so much cheaper per line? It’s not that there are a lot more costs to operate cell service if a phone number isn’t connected to a family plan. It’s all about how advantageous it is for the carrier to sell family plans.

For one thing, if you’re part of a family plan, you’re less likely to shop around and switch carriers. It’s also easier on the carrier’s customer service: They only have to mail bills, process credit cards each month, and all that jazz for one person instead of several. (Verizon and T-Mobile didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on their pricing.)

Last year, AT&T added a new feature that makes it easier to automatically split the bill for people who share a friends-and-family account. The person whose name is on the bill is still ultimately responsible for the full amount, so enter into this kind of arrangement only with people you really trust.

AT&T pointed me to a news story published last year that quoted an exec saying 85% of their customers were on a multi-line plan. Think about that — that means if you actually are one of the suckers who is paying for a single line, you’re in the vast minority.

There’s no honor in paying more to have the bill in your own name — you’re just paying more for the same services. Does your dignity and independence win out here, or does T-Mobile? Hmm?

Does having your own cellphone line make you an adult?

AT&T released its own study (so take it with a grain of salt) that said that 76% of Americans think that coming off a parent’s cellphone plan is one of the “ultimate signs” of becoming an adult.

Sure, at first glance, this seems like a rite of passage into financial independence from your parents.

Is it a smart financial choice?

Consider that the T-Mobile plan — even if you paid back your mom each month for your portion of the phone bill, you’d be saving about $42.50 a month compared to the same service on an individual plan. That’s $5,100 over a decade if you did it from age 22 to 32.

In fact, I’d say that part of becoming an adult is being smart about spending habits and money. And sticking to a family plan is the obviously wise choice.

If you choose to remove yourself from a family plan, you’re just giving the cellphone carriers twice as much — and I see little glory or pride in that.

Look, of course, this all depends on your relationship with your family. You may not want to have this financial tie to them, and you may be in a better financial situation than your parents. But bundling phone lines with other people, whether they’re your family or just some friends, makes a lot of financial sense.

Millennials, it’s time to take pride in one smart financial decision that our generation is making. Embrace it! Be proud to be on a family plan!




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