Unwiring the Third Place: the 'Disconnect to Reconnect' Trend in the Hospitality Industry, 2004-2020

78 media publications were collected and analysed to discuss the recent ‘disconnect to reconnect’ trend in the hospitality industry and identified and described 57 ‘third place’ businesses (cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and bookshops currently operating in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark and France) that restrict the use of digital technology on their premises. The research was guided by the following questions: (1) Why do third place owners choose the policy of digital disconnection? (2) How and with what effects is this policy implemented in different venues? (3) How does the discourse on ‘unwired third places’ frame the dialectic between the physical/offline and the digital/online? The deposited data are organised into two files. ‘Publications_metadata.docx’ contains the list of analysed media publications; ‘Venues_metadata.xlsx’ categorises and briefly describes third place businesses by type, location, and policy. The data were produced as part of a one-year ESRC funded postdoctoral project aimed to supplement and contextualise the PI’s doctoral work on the post-digital city.