TV or Not TV: More Restaurants Tune in to the Trend, but Some Diners Are Turned Off

By Mike Dunne, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Mar. 29–Mike Bibby takes the ball and starts to dribble upcourt. Suddenly, a big and agile tropical fish darts into his path, seeming to take a bite right out of Bibby’s headband. Hallucinogens in the sushi roll? No, just a tall and wide aquarium between table and television set, adding a new dimension not only to slam dunks but the multimedia experience that has become dining out. While dinner in some restaurants long has included entertainment – vocalists, strolling musicians, women selling roses to moony couples – television sets are showing up more frequently. “TVs in the dining room are just the next extension of Muzak,” says pop-culture observer Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. For the most part, TVs in dining rooms are limited to neighborhood restaurants, ethnic cafes and sports bars. Servers aren’t handing out a copy of the current TV Guide with the menu, nor has a remote become part of the table setting. Yet, television sets are getting closer to the tables of even fine-dining establishments, many of which have at least added TVs to their bar. Often the sets will be visible from dinner tables. Even if they aren’t, the shouts of bar patrons gripped by an exciting basketball game or car chase can spill over into dining rooms. Many diners aren’t happy about this development, to judge by the reaction of Bee readers when we asked whether they welcome or deplore the spreading presence of TV sets in restaurants. Not a single respondent said they wanted a TV set in the dining room of a restaurant. Fred Hutchinson and his wife, Meride, just back from Italy, looked forward to telling friends about their adventure. They agreed to meet over dinner at an Italian restaurant in Sacramento. “We could not even hear, let alone communicate, due to the noise of the other diners and their reactions to the evolving basketball game. We left before ordering, as did four other couples,” Hutchinson said in an e-mail to The Bee. They couldn’t see or even hear the game, the set being in the bar, but the fired-up cheers of the fans were enough to drive them from their table. “It wasn’t the TV that was loud, it was the audience,” recalled Hutchinson in an interview. “One girl was a screamer. It was a little too much for us. We were not pleased.” A nod to the Kings’ fan base Restaurateurs have mixed feelings about TV sets in their premises. Some go along with it grudgingly, recognizing that many of their customers are fans of the Sacramento Kings. Give them a means of tracking the team’s progress on game nights or risk losing their business, goes their reasoning. “The Kings are such a big part of this community I felt I had to have it,” says Jelica Orbovic of the single TV set in her Sacramento bistro L’Image. She should know just how keen the city is on the team, given that her brother-in-law is former Kings player Vlade Divac, also a partner in the restaurant. TV sets look to be most popular at the one kind of restaurant that prides itself on live, talented entertainment – sushi bars. It’s not uncommon these days to approach a sushi bar only to find a TV set or two on the wall directly over the shoulders of the restaurant’s sushi chefs, who gamely compete with whatever is on the screen through their banter, adroit knife work and mastery of imaginative rolls. If the Mikuni group of Japanese restaurants didn’t start the fashion, it’s likely most responsible for its spread, beginning about seven years ago when a large plasma flat-screen TV was installed on one wall of its Roseville branch. That set proved so popular that subsequent branches of Mikuni routinely are appointed with 10 or so of the sets. Still, Mikuni’s chief financial officer, Derrick Fong, sounds conflicted as he talks of how the sets have come to replace rice-paper lanterns as the most obvious design touch in so many Japanese restaurants. “Younger Americans especially now have to be hooked to some kind of screen – their computer, PlayStation, phone, DVD player, BlackBerry,” says Fong. Television sets in restaurants, he suggests, are as much a response to that need as they are to keeping basketball fans apprised of the fortunes of the Kings. “People really like visual entertainment,” Fong says. “To some degree, the art of conversation has been lost.” Television instead of talk The potential for television programs to interrupt or take the place of dinner conversation was a thread that ran through many of the comments from Bee readers. “In my humble opinion, TV sets in any mediocre or better eating establishment is more than distracting. It is an insult to my intelligence since it implies that I cannot carry on a decent conversation while enjoying the fine food in the company of friends,” wrote Jim Cloud of Oroville. To restaurant consultant Bill Marvin of Gig Harbor, Wash., television sets in restaurants represent a social distancing that started to become apparent when people thought nothing of pausing during a conversation to take a cell-phone call. “It’s a continuation of this whole thing about being together without having to relate to each other,” Marvin says. The apparent acceptance of TV sets in so many restaurants is the consequence of a generation reared on television and other types of solitary entertainment, such as video games and online surfing, Marvin adds. Thus, while many diners are content to eat with someone, they aren’t particularly eager to talk with them, and television provides a comfortable diversion. “When I was growing up, people actually talked to people (at dinner), but families today don’t do near enough meals together. If people never develop those social skills, why would they try to use them when they go out?” Marvin muses. Similarly, says Thompson, the pop-culture professor, TV sets provide diners who are uncomfortable with each other – a couple on a first date, participants in a business meeting – with something to divert their attention. “The TV is an out, an excuse for not having eye contact or for not having to come up with something interesting to say,” Thompson says. “Is it pathological? Yes. Is it sad? Yes. But pathology and sadness are part of 20th century American life.” Chris Tripoli, president of A’La Carte, a restaurant consulting firm in Houston, and a teacher at the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management of the University of Houston, traces the rise of TV sets at restaurants to three factors: * Restaurateurs recognize that the contemporary American is addicted to a steady stream of entertainment and information and can’t go long between fixes. “We seem to have developed these expectations to be constantly entertained and informed,” Tripoli says. * Today’s sharp, sleek TV sets fit easily into restaurants with contemporary designs, taking the place of the art posters previously used to dress up the walls. * Increasingly, TV sets in restaurants are programmed with videos that show off the restaurant’s personnel and food. Tripoli has one client, a bakery cafe, that continually plays a video of its baked goods, employees icing cakes and the like. “Customers are very interested in that. We’ve fallen in love with food TV.” (Along this line, the folks at Mikuni are starting to produce their own programs for their banks of TV sets. The videos are to be instructive, explaining different varieties of seafood and showing patrons how to select and eat various styles of sushi, Derrick Fong says.) Drawing the line at the dining room Restaurateurs who haven’t been quick to add TV sets give several reasons for their reluctance. Generally, they feel that their clientele is there for food, service and companionship. “Why watch television when you’re out to dinner? It’s a little bit rude,” says Sacramento restaurateur Randy Paragary, who hasn’t put TV sets in the dining rooms of even his casual Cafe Bernardo restaurants, let alone destinations such as Esquire Grill and Spataro. “I’ve never had one single person suggest we put a television set in a dining room, and people are not shy about making suggestions.” Frank Milo, manager of the Sacramento branch of Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which has TV sets in the bar and even the restrooms, doesn’t expect to see any in the dining room. “Our focus is on the guest experience, the food and the Southern hospitality, and television would distract from that.” Restaurateurs also indicate that if they were to install TV sets in dining rooms, their servers might get so engrossed in the programming they’d neglect customers. They also fret that diners might be so captivated by what’s on the screen they’d balk at leaving until the program or game is over, slowing the turnover of tables. And they worry about conflicts with guests over which channel to select, thus potentially alienating clientele. As it is, couples already argue about whether to eat dinner in a restaurant bar with a television set or in a dining room without one. Personal TVs on the table? But challenges to face restaurateurs and guests when it comes to TVs in dining rooms may only be starting. Before long, customers are apt to start showing up at restaurants with small TV sets in hand, ready to prop them atop the table so they can watch whatever they want. Will restaurateurs ask them to keep the volume off or to wear a headset? Will the sight of several small screens flickering across the room be considered distracting or alluring, like votive candles? Will menus ask patrons to keep the units silent, as some do with cell phones? “Within 24 months, this will be commonplace,” Thompson says of hand-held TV sets. “It won’t matter if restaurants have television. You will have it in your pocket. “I can see some restaurants saying, ‘No smoking and no portable TV devices.’ ” Restaurants for dining, not for TV, readers say We asked readers to tell us what they think about TVs in restaurants. Here’s a sampling of their thoughts (we received no responses in favor of TVs). TV’s competition not needed I find the current spreading of TV into public places, not just restaurants, extremely offensive. When I go out to dine, I expect that in addition to the food being good, or at least as good as what I get at home, that my companions and I will be able to enjoy the whole experience. Consequently, I want to be able to enjoy conversation without having to shout and ask for repeats because I cannot hear what is being said if we are competing with a noxious TV set. – Paul Niedzielski, Fair Oaks

Talk, don’t watch A dining experience is supposed to be pleasurable and relaxed. You should chat with your dinner companion, not watch TV. How many marriages are broken up by TV, with husbands (and sometimes wives) watching sports nonstop? Fine, have TVs in bars where people go to drink and maybe watch sports, but in a restaurant? Appalling! – Cindy Moore, Carmichael TVs eroding civility Not, not, NOT! I can eat in front of the TV at home. TVs are appropriate, I suppose, in sports bars (which, unfortunately, all bars seem to be these days) and pizza parlors. More unfortunately, most restaurant TVs also are dialed into “the game.” I patronize restaurants for the pleasure of enjoying wonderful food (that I can’t make at home) and conversation with family and friends, not to watch TV/sports. It’s just one more chink in the armor of civility. – Mikee Green, Sacramento Can’t avoid those giant screens I cannot stand the new trend of positioning a giant plasma screen television on every wall in restaurants. There is no place to sit to get away from them. If I see a restaurant with a plasma screen TV in it, I won’t go in. That establishment will just have to live without my business, because the owners made a choice to turn their business from a restaurant into a sports bar. If I wanted to watch television and eat a nice meal, I would stay home. If I wanted to watch a Kings game and have food and drinks with friends, I would go to a sports bar. If I want to go out with my boyfriend to a nice restaurant, why should I have to ask the server to turn off the television so I can have a quiet conversation and be heard? – Skye Bergen, Sacramento TVs an insult to intelligence In my humble opinion, having TV sets in any mediocre-or-better eating establishment is more than distracting. It is an insult to my intelligence, since it implies that I cannot carry on a decent conversation while enjoying the fine food in the company of friends. We live in Oroville and in times past we came to Sacramento when we wished to “dine” in better eating establishments. However, with the trend of loudmouth TVs and personages, we have restricted our visits to the very few that respect the diner by moderating the music, party groups and TVs. – Jim Cloud, Oroville Stay home or go to a bar Televisions in sports bars are one thing, but restaurant TVs showing March Madness games and the Kings’ run for the playoffs are a big no-no. If a person is that hung up on watching those sports programs, they should stay home or go to a sports bar. People who go out to eat with friends or family or on a date should not be subjected to the droning of sports announcers or the cheering of rude patrons in the middle of dining and visiting. That element is certainly not what I pay for when I go out to dine. – William Kolbe, Sacramento Sound or not, it’s annoying I do not understand why TVs belong in restaurants other than sports bars. If the sound is on, it’s annoying and disruptive. If the sound is off, it’s pointless and an insult to the ability of patrons to have conversations that are not centered around staring at a screen. – Nancy Shulock, Sacramento A weapon of mass destruction This is in reference to television sets in restaurants – I hate them! Television is a weapon of mass destruction. – Max Byrd, Davis Just another distraction TV sets have been part of the “decor” of hospital emergency rooms for many years. The jabbering and idiocy takes one’s mind off pain, anxiety and the long wait. Now TV has moved into doctors’ offices for the same reasons. More recently, you will find TVs in the grocery checkout line and at the bank. Why? Only to distract the customer from the wait? Or is it because as a people we cannot seem to handle life without more and more sound and distraction coming into our lives? Good grief! TVs in restaurants? Why? To distract us from bad food? To make up for our own conversational deficiencies? What a sad commentary. If I ever go into a restaurant and see a TV there to amuse or distract me, I’m outta there. – Laurette Elsberry, Sacramento Keeping us from interacting I am adamantly opposed to TVs in restaurants, except maybe in the bar. If I see one in a fine dining establishment, I will turn around and walk out. What has become of our ability to interact with one another without the interference of cell phones, iPods, PDAs and televisions everywhere we go? – Diane Pargament, Lincoln

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