Phone charging stations for restaurants and cafés.
Diners photograph the food, split the bill by app and book whatever comes next from the table. In a café the same phone runs the whole visit, and a remote worker plans the visit around a socket.
Where the station sits.
- Guests
Charge a phone at the table through the meal, or through one more coffee.
- Station
Fits the counter or the wait station. Guests serve themselves while staff keep serving tables.
- Venue
Table time extends, and every rental pays the venue a revenue share.
The Compact-8 suits most restaurants and cafés. It takes a corner of the counter rather than a section of it, which matters where the counter is also the pass, the till and the coffee machine.
- Recommended model
- Compact-8
- Form factor
- Countertop
- Dimensions
- 26 x 18 x 28 cm
“The seats by the plugs went first every morning without fail. Now they rent a power bank and sit wherever. The station’s on the counter and I don’t think about it.”
Restaurants & cafés, in detail.
- Will a power bank station free up the tables by the plug sockets?
- That is the usual reason a venue installs one. Guests who would otherwise ask for a seat near a socket can sit anywhere and charge at the table, which makes the whole room bookable rather than just the wall seats.
- How much counter space does it need?
- A corner of it. The Compact-8 is a countertop unit, roughly the footprint of a till, and it needs a mains socket and nothing else. It runs on its own mobile connection, so it does not sit on the venue WiFi or compete with the card machine.
- What do remote workers do with a rented power bank?
- They rent one at the counter and keep working at the table. A ZAPT Powerbank carries built-in USB-C, Lightning and Micro-USB cables, so a guest does not need to be carrying their own and there is nothing for them to leave behind.
Other sectors on the network.
- Pubs & bars
Guests stay for the next round instead of leaving to find a charger.
- Clubs & lounges
The table that cannot pay is the table holding up the cash up.
- Gyms & fitness studios
Members finish the session instead of leaving when the music stops.
- Hotels & stays
The front desk stops storing guests’ phones in a drawer.
- Stadiums & festivals
Crowds stay ticketed, paying and findable across the whole site.
- Shopping centres
Visits run longer across every unit in the centre.
Written about restaurants & cafés
- 2026 UK hospitality report: charging at the bar
What charging a guest's phone costs a venue in staff time, liability and lost service, and what changes when it moves off the bar and onto a station.
- Three ways a venue handles phone charging
A wall socket, a drawer behind the bar, or a self-service station. What each of the three answers costs in table turnover, staff time and liability.
- Low battery anxiety: why 9 in 10 feel the panic
A 2025 review puts the prevalence of nomophobia at 94%, and 54% of people panic when the battery drops below 20%. What that means for a venue.
Put a phone charging station in your venue.
Placement is free and installing it means plugging it in. The revenue share is paid quarterly against a statement itemising every rental.