Phone Stacking Game Finds Followers in St. Louis Area

We've all done it. Here’s my story:

Last week, I was waiting for the boyfriend to arrive for our sushi date. Bored, I watched couples at the tables around me, but one in particular caught my eye. Two young women with full plates of tempura and bright pink-and-green cocktails spent their entire meal engrossed in (not each other, not their food, not their drinks, but...) their phones.

I swear they hardly said a word to each other the entire 45 minutes I was waiting. (I was super early, he was a little late. Typical.) As they left and the boyfriend arrived, I filled him in on the their ghastly behavior, my voice dripping with judgment.

After dinner, as we sat a bar waiting for our movie to start, I was halfway into a work email when my boyfriend’s annoyance boiled over. You’re doing the same thing as those girls! he whisper-shouted. I’m just sitting here! I can’t get on my phone—that would just be ridiculous!

Of course, he was right. And now, the Internet—as it so often does—has found an answer to our problem: Phone Stacking.

“Invented” by blogger Brian Perez, the phone stacking game requires everyone to put their phones in the center of the table. The rules are simple: First one to reach for his or her phone picks up the check.

If everyone manages to get through the meal without tweeting, emailing, checking in, liking, poking or whatever else you do on your phone, then each pays only his or her own bill.

Now, foodies in the St. Louis region are jumping in.

“Let me be the first in STL to endorse ‘phone stacking’ in restaurants,” St. Louis Magazine’s food, wine and spirits blog Relish tweeted. “Who else is in?”

We are.