The restaurant offers families free meals when they hand over their phones

We have all seen it. Families sitting in restaurants, each member lost in his own smartphone waiting for his meal. Wait, is it you?

Many restaurateurs want their institutions to offer a social experience and we mean a face-to-face discussion instead of Instagram. But it does not always work that way.

The lack of communication between guests has prompted the UK chain of restaurants Frankie & Benny's to offer free meals to children if families abandon their phones when they enter the restaurant.

The Italian-American restaurant, which has more than 250 restaurants across the UK, came up with the idea after reviewing the results of a survey of how adults use their smartphones. After interviewing 1,500 parents and children, the results revealed that about 10% of children had at some point hidden their mother's or father's handset to get their full attention.

More than 70% of the children surveyed said they wanted their parents to spend less time hacking on the phone, while roughly the same figure indicated that it seemed to them that their parents preferred to be on the phone rather than with them.

Frankie & Benny's launched her "phone-free campaign" from November 29 to December 7, but said she could extend it if it is considered a success.

When a family arrives in one of its restaurants, hungry customers will be offered the option of putting their handsets in a box "no-phone area". As a reward for giving up their devices, kids can eat for free.

"We found that giving families the opportunity to leave their appliances for a few hours was a great way to get them together and enjoy the time with the family," the restaurant said in a statement.

To be clear, the dinners at Frankie & Benny will not be strength give up their phone – that would surely be a step too much and would cause unsightly fights at the entrance. Everything is done on a purely voluntary basis.

"Our staff actively encourages customers and families to participate in the campaign, but we can not of course force them to hand over their phones," confirmed the restaurant at the Independent.

We've heard about individual restaurants that encouraged guests to break off their phone at a meal, but this is the first time we've heard of a chain trying to make such a stratagem.

Want to take things in hand? Then you can try the "phone stacks" game, where all the guests stack their phone on the table at the beginning of the meal. The first person to reach their device when it emits beeps or buzzes must pay for the entire meal. If the pile is intact when you go to pay, you simply divide the check.