Let your café be the place people remember.
Offline Hours is a three-month experiment in Da Nang. For a few hours, a café goes completely phone-free: the team, the regulars and everyone who walks in. We bring the people, the posters and the quiet. You keep doing what you do best.
How it works
A few phone-free hours
On a day and time that suit you, the whole café goes offline. Phones rest in a basket by the door, and anyone can step outside if they need theirs.
Nothing to run
There's no class and no programme. Guests order, sit, read, draw, talk or do nothing at all. A host from Back to Being Human is there the whole time.
No cost to you
Guests sign up free on Luma, then order from you as they normally would. We make everything you need to put it on.
Four small things.
- 1
Put up the posters we make for you, in the window and by the counter.
- 2
Share it with your community, on your Instagram and with your regulars.
- 3
Let customers know it's happening as they arrive.
- 4
Ask your team to greet guests and collect phones into the basket, and keep their own phones away for those few hours too.
An afternoon people talk about.
- A memorable visit, in your space. Guests leave calmer and more in touch with themselves, and they remember where it happened.
- New faces. We bring people from our community and from Luma who may never have found you.
- Reasons to come back. People return to the places that stay with them.
- Everything made for you. Posters, the phone basket, table cards and the sign-up page.
On the day
We agree a date and time that suit you. We make the posters and put the event on Luma, where people sign up free.
Your team welcomes them and explains it's Offline Hours. Phones go into the basket by the door; anyone who needs theirs simply steps outside.
We bring question cards, paper, pencils and a few things to make with your hands. The host stays the whole time, keeping it calm.
People return to the places that stay with them.
In a study of café customers in Vietnam, the more memorable the visit, the more likely people were to come back and to recommend the café.1
Among café visitors in Thailand, relaxation and new experiences made a visit memorable, and memorable visits made people more likely to return.2
A homely feel, comfort and a sense of belonging are what turn café visitors into regulars.3
When phones are on the table, people feel more distracted and enjoy their time together less.4
Offline Hours is designed to be that kind of visit. Whether it brings people back to your café is exactly what this experiment is here to find out.
- Source: Chen, Wang & Morrison (2021). Extending the memorable tourism experience model: a study of coffee tourism in Vietnam. British Food Journal, 123(6), 2235–2257.
- Source: Junjinda, Wongkantarakorn & Suwannoi (2024). Café hopping tourism: the impact of memorable experiences on recommendations and return intentions. Journal of Communication and Management NIDA, 10(1).
- Source: Haktanir & Gullu (2024). Place attachment in coffee shops: a customer perspective study in North Cyprus. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 7(1), 312–328.
- Source: Dwyer, Kushlev & Dunn (2018). Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Run a café in Da Nang? Let's talk.
If this sounds like your kind of afternoon, say hello. We'll come by for a coffee and talk it through.
Contact details to be added.