Kota Kai is the owner and manager of the Tokyo noodle restaurant Debu-chan, which means “chubby” in Japanese. He recently made the decision to permanently ban guests from using their smartphones while eating during peak hours, which has become a hot topic of discussion on the Japanese social media segment.
The owner claims that he did not post any posters asking him to remove the phones; instead, he talks to each client individually. For a restaurateur, traditional ramen is more than just food, which is why he is so meticulous about the whole process.
“I think it’s a kind of leisure that should include certain rules. It’s like the proverb:” When you’re in Rome, do as the Romans do. “Ramen for me is a form of entertainment,” the catering owner is quoted as saying MASS MEDIA.
According to the owner, in recent years, the establishment has been increasingly visited by customers who prefer to watch videos on the screens of their smartphones instead of immediately starting to eat before the dish has cooled down.
Residents of other countries may not understand what the essence of the dissatisfied owner’s claim is. The thing is that in Japanese ramen restaurants, there is an unspoken rule: eat and leave. In addition, Kai’s place serves not just ramen, but “Hakata ramen,” a regional type of noodle from Hakata Prefecture in western Japan that he says is “food for impatient people.”
The thin noodles served are only one millimeter wide, so they begin to stretch and deteriorate very quickly. By this logic, waiting more than four minutes can result in the food being “poor quality”.
Debu-chan is a fairly large noodle restaurant in Tokyo with 33 seats. However, Kai says it’s not unusual for 10 people to line up for one seat at times during peak hours.
“When all the seats are taken and I see that people stop eating, buried in their smartphones, I tell them to stop,” shares the know-how owner.
Debu-chan isn’t the first place to spark controversy about the appropriateness of using smartphones while eating. A message appeared at a McDonald’s outpost in Singapore “Turn off your phone. Turn on the fun.” The campaign was launched in 2017. The restaurant installed smartphone lockers where customers could store their devices while eating to allow patrons to spend more time with their children.
Restrictions on the use of a smartphone can be introduced not only by catering. In 2021, Tokyo’s Adachi District issued a regulation banning people from using their phones while walking or cycling.