Alamo is facing backlash after switching to digital food ordering. | Photo: Shutterstock
Earlier this month, Alamo Drafthouse, the dine-in movie theater chain, announced the end of a cherished policy: No phones allowed.
The 44-unit chain is lifting the strict ban as part of a new process for ordering food. Rather than writing their order on a card when they want something mid-movie, customers will now have to use their phone to place an order. They’ll still be prohibited from using their phones to text or surf the web.
Alamo said the new ordering system, which apparently features a dark screen to limit disruption, will boost efficiency and reduce distractions, presumably because servers will no longer have to creep through the aisles to collect cards during the movie.
Not surprisingly, the response from customers has been resoundingly negative.
“The shift to smartphone ordering feels less like progress and more like a betrayal of Alamo’s soul,” wrote the author of an online petition calling for an end to the new system. The author, who claims to be a descendant of Davy Crockett, praised the “frontier magic” of the pen-and-paper process:
“You scribbled a note on a slip of paper, and raised it upon your table-fort parapet like a signal flag. A keen scout would take notice, whisking it away into the night to stealthily return with requested supplies. It was effective, tactile, and most importantly? Dark.”
As of Monday, the petition had more than 3,000 signatures.
Culver City, California-based Alamo is one of many restaurant chains to find itself at a crossroads between tradition and innovation.
Panera Bread, for instance, is shifting from fresh-baked bread to a frozen product. Chuck E. Cheese removed its animatronic band in a bid to attract younger consumers. Both moves have been met with at least some backlash.
There are even flashes of this conflict in Cracker Barrel’s logo saga. The roadside dining chain famously pared back its emblem last year so that it would be more easily visible on highway signs. It quickly reversed course after an outcry from customers.
In each case, the issue boils down to a preference for older, analog experiences over more streamlined, digital ones, at least among some consumers.
I’m sure none of these restaurants made these changes lightly. Erasing a brand hallmark, like Chuck E. Cheese’s “live” band or Alamo’s no-phone policy, should never be a no-brainer. But the past several years have been unbelievably hard on restaurants’ bottom lines. Costs just keep going up while traffic stagnates or declines. To survive, restaurants have had to find ways to do more with less.
Ideally that streamlining can be done without customers noticing too much. But sometimes there’s no way of decoupling the two.
Plus, it’s not as if Chuck E. Cheese, Panera and Cracker Barrel were booming before they bowed to progress. There’s a real sense around the industry that restaurants must modernize or die.
At the same time, I have to wonder if some restaurants’ efforts to go where the world is going are actually putting them at odds with a deeper current. Because as daily life becomes increasingly intertwined with AI, smartphones and social media, more consumers are starting to seek refuge in “real” experiences.
For instance, Michaels, the arts-and-crafts retailer, saw searches for “analog hobbies” increase by 136% in the second half of last year, CNN reported this month. After searches for yarn kits surged by 1,200%, the company has decided to make more space on its shelves for knitting supplies.
Some young people are taking this a step further by doing something they are calling “rawdogging boredom.” This means sitting and doing nothing for a while, without a phone. It’s apparently an effort to fix attention spans that have been fried by social media.
Remember, these are the so-called digital natives that many restaurant brands are bending over backwards to attract.
“I do think it’s this really big cultural shift happening right now,” Michaels Chief Merchandising Officer Stacey Shively told CNN.
This should be good news for restaurants. They are in a prime position to meet growing demand for physical experiences, face-to-face interaction, nostalgia and sensation. Most of these things aren’t “efficient,” of course, but that’s why consumers seem to love them.
The most memorable dining experience I’ve had in recent years was at a beloved Serbian restaurant in Milwaukee called Three Brothers. Customers are warned when they arrive that the food, particularly the signature burek pastry, can take a long time to prepare, as it’s all made to order from scratch. The long wait (with a friendly heads-up) was somehow refreshing. What’s the rush, after all? At the end of the meal, I paid with a check and was totally charmed by it. Other customers must feel the same way: Three Brothers turns 70 this year and seems to be as popular as ever.
There are strands of this experience in Starbucks’ makeover under Brian Niccol, which is partly aimed at restoring the chain’s reputation as a “third place” where customers can while away an afternoon. It is also focusing on speed, but part of that entails separating the digital and in-person order queues to help ease congestion and chaos.
Other restaurant brands are making similar nods to the past in hopes of pleasing customers. Last week, la Madeleine Bakery & Cafe announced that it is bringing back complimentary bread and jam in its cafes. The offering was apparently ended due to safety concerns during the pandemic and not reinstated. News of its return was widely applauded, at least on social media, even though it will presumably make the chain’s operations more complex.
“Over time, the world changed, costs changed, and the industry changed. But what guests value hasn’t,” la Madeleine CEO John Dillon wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the move.
Now, for all we know, la Madeleine is raising its menu prices or making cuts elsewhere. It would be entirely understandable for the chain to do that. But customers will value the free bread far more than they will feel the sting of an incremental price hike.
At the ICR conference earlier this month, Fogo de Chao CEO Barry McGowan told me that whenever the chain takes price, it also makes an effort to give something more to customers. That’s how it began serving a grilled cheese with malagueta honey at its Market Table buffet.
All restaurants should be working to strike a similar balance between give and take, physical and digital, slow and fast. Those that do it successfully will stand out in the sea of digital sameness. And customers will reward them for it.
And as someone who relishes turning off my phone at the movies, I hope Alamo Drafthouse will reconsider its new policy, or at least find a way to even it out with something longtime fans will truly love. Its future may depend on it.
