Has Gen Z (and Our Reliance on Tech) Killed Hospitality Service?

We walked into a highly-regarded restaurant just outside of Baltimore last week. Everybody told us to try this place. We walked inside, got a quick smile, and a “We’ll be right with you.” 

And then… nada.

Five minutes of silence while the host and maître d’ stood, heads buried in an iPad and an iPhone, trying to sort out some reservation mess. No eye contact or follow-up. Just us, standing in front of the host desk while the energy in the room quietly died.

When they finally looked up, the service was great. But that opening moment stuck. Not because they were rude — they weren’t — but because those five minutes weren’t hospitality. They were limbo. Two front-of-house pros doing their job, just not to us. Their attention was somewhere else.

It’s a feeling we’ve had over and over lately —in New York, Charleston, San Francisco. Places whose praises are constantly sung as the hospitality capitals of the States. But somewhere along the line, presence got replaced with process, screens replaced eye contact, and tasks replaced connection.

Contrary to what many will say, this didn’t start with the pandemic, the pandemic exacerbated the problem. The beginning was the late 2000s, when smartphones got smarter and social media connected the world. The dopamine death scroll crept into every aspect of our lives. Home, train, car, dining out, and, eventually, on the floor.

We put iPads at host stands, POS systems in everyone’s hands, tablets behind bars, and told ourselves it would make service “more efficient.” Instead, we got an army of staff with heads down while guests hung in the dead space between “hello” and “hospitality.”