Brewery offers free beer if you lock away your phone

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- At the bar and on tables throughout Broken Bat Brewing on Friday, Aug. 30, were cards, board games and brats. It was much harder to spot people's phones because most people there had agreed to leave theirs with the bartender.

It was the third 'No Phone Friday' Broken Bat has hosted this summer. The promotion offers customers one free drink if they agree to leave their phone locked away at the bar.

Owner Tim Pauly said he came up with the idea after realizing how much time he'd been spending 'doomscrolling' on his phone.

"Just a lot of negativity online," he said. "Just figured, why not give people a reason to put their phone down, come have beer, shoot some darts, play some pool, just relax for a little bit."

Pauly launched the promotion in June, and he said he was surprised by just how popular it's been. Broken Bat has had one "No Phone Friday" each month, and Pauly said sales on those days were nearly double that of other Fridays this summer.

Guy Hill, who lives near the brewery with his wife, said they decided to check out the promotion after learning about it in an emailed newsletter he received from Broken Bat.

"Seemed different, seemed fun," he said. "You know, I think we're all addicted to those phones, so it's kind of nice to put them over there in the box, and we played cards. I won."

Summer Hegranes and Justin Konowalski also turned in their phones Friday. Hegranes said she learned about the offer via social media. Both Hegranes and Konowalski admitted it felt uncomfortable going without their phones at first.

"I was saying to [Justin], like my first instinct when we started playing darts is I wanted to take a picture and post it on my Instagram story," Hegranes said. "And I was like, 'Oh, I don't have my phone.'"

Hill said the time spent playing cards and not reaching for his phone made him realize just how often he's looking at his phone over the course of a day. For Konowalski, it was a refreshing experience, but he also didn't get fully adjusted to it.

"I haven't settled in," he said. "I still feel like I'm missing something, but it's been nice."

While Pauly is not surprised by the popularity of the promotion, he said he was taken aback by how many young people are participating. He expected the crowds to skew older than usual, but that hasn't been the case.

"We've had guests as young as 21 in groups," he said. "It's not just one or two people coming in. It's groups of five and six, and they'll grab a table, play cribbage."

Initially, Broken Bat scheduled four 'No Phone Friday' dates, and the promotion was set to run through September. However, given its popularity, Pauly said he's setting dates for another four months, which will carry it through January. If it keeps drawing a crowd after that, Pauly said he'd want to keep rolling with it.

"Just things that we used to really enjoy doing, and these darn phones kind of got a grip on us," he said. "And when you just put it down, you realize that you can pass the time in a lot of other ways."