People lose their minds when their phones run out of juice, and then they ask bartenders to let them plug their phone in behind the bar, and don't understand why we always say no. "But you don't have to do it for everybody, just for meeee!"
It's common at festivals these days for there to be lockers that have chargers inside of them, and I spent about a minute pondering how hard it would be to build one of those when I realized that was just making a whole new set of problems like left-behind phones and lost keys.
So instead, we're now selling DNA-branded cell phone chargers at coat check! Twelve bucks.
I don't know how high-quality the batteries or the cables are, since (like most microchips) they are constructed primarily from sadness and the bone marrow of Chinese prisoners, but I can definitely guarantee you that it's the cheapest phone charger between you and your car.
You know there's also a 40-outlet power strip under the customer side of the Pizza bar, right? I'm not sure most people have noticed that that's there.
“But you don’t have to do it for everybody, just for meeee!”
That ought to earn them an inked stamp on the forehead that means “Charge me double”, no?
Pretty good price. Do you sell them pre-charged?
It says “pre-charged” RIGHT THERE IN THE PHOTO.
So it does. Curious about the charging arrangement in place.
If they’re like almost every other example of the species, they come charged out of the shipping carton, because it has occurred to the manufacturers that to do otherwise is likely to recapitulate the chicken-or-egg problem with bonus inventive swearing.
They don’t come charged (see: “sorrow and Chinese prisoners”) but we follow the sophisticated protocol of plugging them in before selling them.
Just a suggestion, but as an incentive, you could offer to swap out anyone’s discharged ones for a freshly-charged one (from a set of loaner ones obvs, not giving away new ones all the time/not giving new customers already-abused ones) for disorganised regulars. A UK cell network (who gives customers a charger bar) offers this and I can see how it’d make it much more of an attractive proposition, even though it probably won’t get used a whole lot.
Or you could glue some usb cables into some sockets in the pizza bar, but I suspect that’d also become a whole new set of problems.
Our core competency is booze and music.
These are primarily a means of allowing our staff to focus on those areas, rather than spending 5 minutes telling someone that we cannot babysit and charge their phone for them. This is not an attemp at entering the glamorous and exciting area of batter life management.
The DNA pizza link gets shouty at me about the certificate cname.
Samesies.
Safari on iOS 9.
In Chrome I get NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID. Also, it doesn’t like the cipher suite much.
Looks like you’re serving up the dnalounge.com cert on the dnapizza.com site:
depth=1 /C=US/O=GeoTrust Inc./CN=RapidSSL SHA256 CA – G3
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:0
—
Certificate chain
0 s:/OU=GT80428142/OU=See http://www.rapidssl.com/resources/cps (c)14/OU=Domain Control Validated – RapidSSL(R)/CN=www.dnalounge.com
i:/C=US/O=GeoTrust Inc./CN=RapidSSL SHA256 CA – G3
1 s:/C=US/O=GeoTrust Inc./CN=RapidSSL SHA256 CA – G3
i:/C=US/O=GeoTrust Inc./CN=GeoTrust Global CA
Oh right, that’s because I didn’t actually pay for an SSL cert for dnapizza.com. I switched http://www.dnalounge.com and http://www.jwz.org over to be https-only a few weeks ago, but not that one.
<unsolicted_advice_from_internet_rando> I use and endorse sslmate.com: reasonably cheap (esp for single-site certs), an actual API, command-line toolset written in perl, optional automatic renewal </rando>
This is, for the record, complete genius. If more venues did this, I’d probably have a drawer full of the damn things. They’d be the matchbooks of the 21st century!
BTW: things may have improved since the last time I looked, but when I did the state of Chinese knock-off Lightning® cables was dire — the last time I ordered a batch, three out of the five wouldn’t even charge, nevermind sync. (Thanks ever so much Apple for deciding that active DRM in my fucking charging cable was a feature add.)
The cheapest and shortest apple-certified USB to Lightning cable I could find was the Amazon Basics 4″ at $7 each. Might be worth stocking a fistful behind the bar to resell at $12/pop for anyone complaining that the builtin cable is fucked.
As you can see in the photo, it’s a tiny Lightning shim on a USB micro cable. It works fine out of the box. Whether it still works a week from now, I can’t guess.
Probably only needs to work for 4-6 hours anyway before it’s inevitably lost underneath the customer’s car seats.
It’s not the cheapest, but if you want a Lightning cable that will actually last, the Fuse Chicken Titan cables are really durable, and MFi certified. There’s also a short keychain version.
Whoa. Okay, yeah, plunking down for the keychain version right now. Thanks.
That’s bizarre to me. “Whatever shall I do here with no smartphone? If only there were beverages and entertainment available.” Damn kids, lawn, &c.
To be fair, having the phone work can be a crucial step in the getting-home process.
What am I saying, all their music sounds like noise anyhow.
Does this charger come with an iPhone cable, or do you depend on customers to arrive with one? I wasn’t aware that you could get a functional Lightning cable so cheaply.
The included cable is visible RIGHT THERE IN THE PHOTO.
You’re right, of course. With the photo angle and the tip reflection, I thought it was a USB micro, but I now see that it’s a Lightning adaptor. Curious as to how well these work in practice.
Well enough for a no-nonsense, tech-savvy guy to be comfortable putting his personal brand name on it and advertising it to the world! Jesus, people, what the fuck?
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT MAYBE YOU SHOULD TELL PEOPLE NOT TO USE THESE TO STIR THEIR DRINKS WITH? HMMM? HMMM? HERE TO HELP!
I stirred my drink with this and now neither my drink or phone works. Would not reccommend.
Let’s see, I’ve got to add something to this conversation about this simple benefit being provided…
Hmmm…
What do I do while the phone is getting enough charge to turn back on? Do I have to talk to people there?
And how do we know that this isn’t some sort of device that will hack into my phone over the lightning connection and steal my personal data and transmits it back to the prisoners in China?
Have you considered the possibility that you are not the target audience?
Any plans to put these in the online store? I would happily buy two.
I would also buy one or two if they were in the online store.
WHY????
Because we want to support you, jwz, and I already have a coffee mug.
#metoo
#methree
But I will probably just pick one up at the cafe.
Because branded. :)
Because I don’t live in SF and can’t just drop by and pick one up?
Because I’m a moron?
This entire thread made my day.
Thanks for the lightning cable recommendation, too. I’m always thrashing my good ones, and my cheap ones don’t work.
I have to ask… was this your idea? Is someone else already doing this somewhere? Because this is an awesome idea. You know what appeals to me the most about it? It doesn’t feel like gouging. You can’t get a cable for less that $20 at an airport. You’re going to drop $14 at Best Buy and you’ve still got to buy something else to power it.
But you’re giving out a cable AND a battery that I can take home and reuse for less than half that? And all I need to do in return is show off your cool logo?
Do you really honestly not see why people are throwing money at you? Why we think this is great of you and want these in your online store?
However, speaking as someone who was just looking at the damage caused by a failed battery on charge, it might be a good idea to find a way to safely isolate them while you’re charging them. A large number of cheap packs seems like it is playing with the odds a bit. I don’t want DNA Lounge destroyed by a flaky LiIon cell bursting into flames in the middle of the night.
The gift shop grows…
I really want a stencil stylized image of Tony Robbins on the price cards.
You are funny
The comments are awesome!