Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible | Hacker News Reader

Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

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When they work well, they're really good, but when they work badly, they're _really_ bad.

The other week, I went for dinner at a place that had a online ordering system. My experience was as follows...

Arrive at the table, scan the QR code

No phone signal in the restaurant, so I need to connect to the wifi.

Connect to the wifi, get a captive portal

Need to put my phone number in to connect to the wifi; there is no signal, so I need to go outside, to receieve the confirmation code.

Connected to the wifi, scan the code again, choose my food.

Go to pay, need to register an account

Put my email address in, I already have an account on this food ordering service!?

Do a password reset

Put in my credit card details (why not use apple pay?).

This whole time, we're sat at a table, in theory to meet friends, but we've spent the first 15 minutes all glued to our phones!

I haven't seen anything that bad since last summer. Actually I've seen some QR code and online based checkout systems that were bad, but I just ignore those with a "I'm not signing up for that"

Assuming there was another restaurant nearby, I'd have simplified the process to "go outside". If a restaurant is too cheap to print a menu, why should I consider it good enough for me?

With covid, many restaurants removed paper menus to avoid transmission. I hate QR codes so that was a move I was not in favour of.....

Laminated menus that you can spray and wipe off would make a lot more sense.

It’s as if Denny’s has been ahead of the game all a long

Assume you're disgusting, work backwards from there.

Don’t be acting like Denny’s is a Waffle House.

On the other hand, pathogens survive longer on a smooth surface than on a rough absorbant surface, and I would guess that they are more likely to be transferred from a smooth surface onto somebody's hand than from a rough absorvant surface. So, taking account of people perhaps not doing all that spraying and wiping properly, a paper menu might turn out to be safer after all.

Then destroy and replace them with every service?

it's only a printed sheet

I could be wrong, as I often am, but I think getting covid from a surface is recently proven to be highly unlikely.

They have known this since april 2020, it was a German scientist that first tested this I believe.

In March of 2020 we were pretty sure that at most 5% of Covid transmissions were through touched surfaces (fomites). Currently we're sure that at most .01% of Covid transmissions are through surfaces and still haven't found clear evidence of it ever actually having happened so literally 0% still can't be ruled out. But upper respiratory tract infections like the flu do actually spread through fomites pretty easily so we've defaulted to the flu playbook for many public health measures.

There are a lot of diseases out there that are transferred on surfaces however. Not everything is about covid

Interestingly this is why wood cutting boards are better than plastic ones.

Restaurants open during the pandemic has been a joke. Outside in a tent/wood box never fixed any problem. I have not been to a restaurant since March 2020. Going to different restaurants was my favorite hobby, but the experience has become so hostile that I won’t go back until I can sit inside without a mask, have a menu, and not have to worry about a coughing idiot.

Your comment reeks of entitlement. Restaurant owners have been struggling to survive by serving customers any way they can. Sorry your high dining-out standards can’t be met while a few million people die from the pandemic.

How is this entitlement? Dining at a restaurant is a luxury, if I’m going to spend my money on a luxury, I’m going to choose an experience that is safe, enjoyable, and to my interests. Why are you so upset? Why do you feel that the conditions in place are acceptable? Personally, I grew up quite poor and never got to go to restaurants. It wasn’t until I started making a little money in my late 20s that I could start to go to restaurants as a way to remove myself from my current stressful life and just unwind for a bit. For me restaurant dining is an experience and the experience offered at present isn’t appealing.

It's not entitlement. You are entitled to express your opinion that dining in restaurants has become something you no longer enjoy. I think it's worth noting since their existence depends upon pleasing customers.

People forget that restaurants are a really modern invention. They were first introduced in France at the turn of the 19th century to provide more than just a way to order one type of food. The main reason they exist is the service, ambiance, and menu. Until "nice" restaurants came about, there were pretty much just taverns and inns, which were not renowned for their dining experience, and in most locales there was just one or maybe two, and the food selection wasn't great.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/archaeologists-excav... might want to consider a wider scope of recent archaeological discoveries. I wonder what it was like outside of Europe during this time period too

Dining at a restaurant is a luxury

I think this is the crux of the difference of opinions. Dining at a restaurant is different things to different people at different times. I love the 'luxury' dining experience with all that it entails, will happily pay a lot of money to experience it, and I cannot wait to do that again. And in those cases, yes I expect that all aspects of the dining experience live up to that. But just as often I'm just hungry and want a halfway decent burger and beer served to me as quickly and efficiently as possible.

For most people and in most situations, dining at a restaurant isn't a luxury experience, it's just a way to get food.

It smacks of entitlement when dining at a restaurant is considered basic necessity and preparing your own meals is considered a luxury. Think about history. Think about the vast, vast majority of people on earth. Consider just how entitled one must be to have the help prepare your basic necessities of life.

By that argument, indoor plumbing and safe running water can also be considered luxuries. Which, while true, is rather reductivist.

And if we want to talk history, having food made for you by other rather than making it yourself is not a new thing. Having a servant or a wife/mother/grandmother making you dinner was far more common in the past than it is now. I'd probably guess that more people know how to cook and cook their own food today, than at just about any other time in history

Stirring Mac and cheese or warming a Hot Pocket is not on the same level as roasting a pig and such, but I agree with the local point you're making.

These are all just spinning food products around or on a heat source, sounds like we could just abstract and reuse that module without coding up a behavior for each 'new' cooking technique.

It's remarkable how much those restaurants they uncovered in Pompeii resemble modern versions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium

Fast food has been a staple of life since antiquity: For centuries, folks went to the baker to get bread, since home kitchen facilities were very limited. Women have been stuck in home kitchens for eons, with male family members not learning even basic skills unless they were employed as cooks or bakers.

I think we've been depending on others for food prep for a very, very long time.

That’s extremely sexist. I for one am an excellent cook, I’m not a women, and I haven’t been employed for my cooking abilities. I learned to cook because I wasn’t able to experience restaurants. I was tired of the bland boring food my parents made. I started cooking our meals and I would copy from tv shows, magazines. I wanted better food, but couldn’t afford to have it prepared for me so I learned a skill. Any restaurant food is considered a luxury to me. I aggressively budgeted so that I could start going to restaurants as an adult. My cooking abilities only got better when I was able to taste the food that I’d been mimicking for so long. For me a normal family meal cost $20, a single value meal at McDonald’s is $10. So for my family a meal at McDonald’s would be $40 minimum. That increases as the greatly as you transition into sit down meals; where a meal is $15 per person and that’s before tip so $80. How are these not luxury expenses? 1 meal at a restaurant cost as much as 4 at home and those home meals will also produce leftovers for lunches. Before COVID I would eat out 1 times a week with my family and 1-2 times a week for lunch. At that frequency it’s still a lot of money and I have always treated it as a luxury expense that is part food and part entertainment.

Recounting historical realities is sexist? How does one talk about history then, since history is chock-full of inequalities? And might there be some decent, non-sexist reasons why women cooked and men didn't, consistently, over large periods of time and many different cultures?

“That’s extremely sexist.”

No it isn’t, GP was recounting historical norms. Get off your high horse.

I'm the poster you responded to, and I think you've taken some things out of context. Of course there is sexism. I was talking about history, and history has a lot more sexism than a lot of western, more "liberal" countries retain - and this is a fairly recent development.

> Women have been stuck in home kitchens for eons ... we've been depending on others for food prep for a very, very long time.

Did the slightly more than half the population throughout history also have someone else cook for them too? A woman's woman perhaps?

No, I'm not buying any argument that says a person is not privileged to have someone provide for them just because they consider the provisioner to be a lesser being like a woman or a slave. Quite the contrary in fact: I consider that a reinforcing argument for a privileged existence.

A woman's woman perhaps?

Servants and maids where much more common in the past than now, especially among the middle class. Also it was more common to have several generations living under the same roof, so 1-2 people would often be preparing meals for 6-12 people. Today it is much more likely that you have 1-2 people preparing food for 1-4 people.

I strongly suspect that the proportion of people eating a meal they cooked themselves is almost certainly higher now than at virtually any point in history.

In developing countries, the urban poor frequently don't live in places with cooking facilities and have to eat prepared food.

For all people in all situations in the UK, dining at a restaurant is subject to VAT; it is therefore considered a luxury (in the sense of being pleasant but not necessary [0]) as opposed to essential 'way to get food'.

It may seem a bit ridiculous to appeal to VAT - there are fairly 'ordinary' goods that are nevertheless deemed inessential and taxable after all - but I just wanted a way to say that I think GP's use of 'luxury' is being misinterpreted as a desire for fine dining; as I read it, I agree, it's discretional expenditure which has my discretion when I think I'll enjoy it. If I don't, why should I?

I don't think that's any more entitled than the converse view here that we have some sort of moral obligation to personally (and not through taxes) support restaurateurs through limited opening.

[0] - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/luxury

When you’re poor, dining out is a luxury. Like GP, I grew up poor and still think of something like AppleBees as frivolous and expensive. I like to have an enjoyable experience as well. The hygiene theater has really reduced that experience. Menus being an unexpected casualty of the pandemic.

> why do you feel like the conditions in place are acceptable?

“Acceptable”? To whom? This is why you sound entitled. The alternative is not dining out. You make it sound like restaurants are letting you down or should try harder. The word “acceptable” has no place in this conversation.

It’s fine that you don’t want to go out to restaurants right now. But you’re complaining about how inconvenient it is for you like there is no underlying reason for things to be in this state. Businesses ate also victims of this pandemic.

All of this makes me upset because it sounds extremely insensitive. The world is mourning millions of dead and you’re grumpy about your restaurant experience being ruined. Might be just your wording but one would expect a bit more empathy.

I disagree. You are allowed to have an opinion about something you would pay for. In fact you are allowed to have an opinion period. That doesn't make you entitled.

It isn't the opinion that makes them sound entitled.

The base opinion is: I haven't gone to such places since Covid began because the experience is less enjoyable and more stressful.

But it is said with contempt for the businesses and regulations, which the businesses cannot do much about. Even where it is open, they have to think about their employees and the risk they put them in. Not only that, but folks have been dining in tents and under wooden awnings - in booths even - enjoyably for decades. Where I am at, before covid hit they had heating and blankets outdoors so the restaurants could extend the outdoor seating season. The poster acts like it something horrible thrust upon them, when the fact is that they simply aren't a fan.

If people liked that sort of thing it would have been the business model before it was forced to be. The restaurants have declined in quality. Sometimes this is their fault, and sometimes it isn't. Either way, no restaurant is entitled to customers. A lot of places near me have decided that masks are still required, despite the state saying they aren't. In response, I have decided not to eat there. There's no entitlement either way, just the market.

How can you eat with a mask on? Or are you referring tot non-restaurant places?

They require a mask at the door and at any time when not seated. Some places even require you to put the mask back on when the waiter comes to the table. It's all just theater, and I won't be a part of it.

> To whom? This is why you sound entitled.

> you’re complaining

> All of this makes me upset because it sounds extremely insensitive.

> The world is mourning millions of dead

> a bit more empathy.

You're attacking a person for their honest opinion while knowing almost nothing about them, their life etc. In fact you sound angry and insensitive, please keep your emotions under control

Nice way to turn this into a personal attack. I have nothing against this opinion, and said as much above (I might even share it). His attitude and wording is entitled and disrespectful, like this is an inconvenience to him and not the result of worldwide events.

I am sorry you live in an area that does not respect freedom.

Around here in door dining was only closed for a couple of weeks maybe a month or so. Then it was 50% capacity for a few months, then 75%, and we have been fully open for in door dinning for several months now

> and not have to worry about a coughing idiot

That's on you and your location. I've been eating back at restaurants just fine for about a year now without a mask (for while it was mask on unless at a table, which is a bit of a joke to act like that helps anything). It was nice being able to walk in anywhere without RSVP but that's going away too as more and more people are back to work and social activities.

The tent/box "solution" was so dumb, the idea of "outside dining is okay" is because fresh air would dillute the virus being breathed out by people. If you're "outside" a building but in a tent, that's no difference, but well it follows the letter of the rules and somehow authorities also turn a blind eye, so they've been allowed. From a science point of view, if that was okay, you might've as well stayed indoors!

Most, if not all restaurants I've been to around my area, were already either using or switched to using laminated sheets, sometimes bound in a plastic or leather cover. Plastic-enclosed paper is trivial to sanitize and lasts a VERY long time, plus I would like to imagine a laminator is quite a bit cheaper in the long-term than maintaining separate menu websites for every individual location.

It's amazing how some can re-invent the simplest of ideas simply for the sake of getting tech rammed into the stream.

It is not for tech sake, this is building a database. Never attribute to incompetence what can be adequately explained by bogus engagement KPIs

Orders are typically stored anyways?

But not how long you stared at the deserts, or what side of the "give me lobster" button you pressed.

Meaningless and trivial metrics, ultimately. Third order at best.

Probably, but it is still data that is cheap to store. IF someone can find something useful in just 1% of those things 10 years from now all the cost to collect and store all that data will be worth the investment - or so they hope. They probably will too - the cost vs reward is very skewed.

Maybe eventually; I haven't seen a PointOfSale system that worked remotely well enough I thought they could be competent to implement in a useful way.

I tend to not jump to malicious that can be attributed to virtue signaling and/or incompetence.

Most of the restaurants I've been to the QR code takes you to a PDF of the menu as found on the restaurant's website. There's no auth and no way to track anything beyond I guess how many times people opened the menu file. Restaurants aren't doing this for tracking, they're doing it to stay on the good side of public health regulations in a period where they've learned they can be forcibly closed with barely any warning.

The idea of menu costs is an extremely important one in restaurant economics. Sure laminated menus may last a while but they're a pain in the ass to change. If the restaurant wants to add an item or change the prices they're pretty much out of luck. None of the 30 or so restaurants I've been to post pandemic have had physical menus which is definitely not ideal, but I don't see them going back to having non zero menu costs.

A few here went the opposite route. Print the menu doublesided with a standard B&W laser printer. Every customer gets a new menu and it does not cost a ton extra.

I've been to a number of restaurants that have had QR codes on the table but, if you request it, they provide a laminated menu.

That’s indeed why they did it, which is silly because there’s zero evidence that paper restaurant menus are a significant risk of covid transmission. It’s pure hygiene theater.

Hygiene theater? That’s just hygiene. You don’t HAVE to bathe everyday, nothing will happen if you don’t. But doing so is just hygiene.

If you don’t bathe every day, and you have a body that produces a lot of sweat, you will look and smell disgusting to other people. That’s hardly “nothing”.

A year ago it was generally believed that fomites passed by contact was or could be a significant path for spread of the covid-19 virus. This turns out not to be the case - but that hasn't stopped a huge number of organizations from demanding high levels of surface cleansing.

If you're just unusually fastidious, I guess that's your right. But when you're claiming (or at least implying) that everyone must conform to those same levels to avoid covid-19 transmission - which is what we're still seeing quite a bit of - then that's hygiene theater.

Yeah, the CDC has acknowledged the surface thing [1], but sadly people are still operating on last year's knowledge and stil think disinfection is super important. Meanwhile despite new knowledge that Covid spreads in the air (not just through visible spit)[2], things like good ventilation (e.g. keeping windows open) hasn't really been pushed to people's heads. Maybe it's the failure of media?

[1] https://nypost.com/2021/04/05/low-risk-of-catching-covid-fro...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/opinion/coronavirus-airbo...

Nah, they did it because it makes it super easy to change the menu. Physical menus rarely change, online menus can change instantly for free.

It's definitely not free when you consider the infrastructure behind providing online menus.

Most restaurants already have a website.

IDK I've been to restaurants where its just a QR code linked to a google drive pdf. Doesn't require much infrastructure there.

QR code to s3 bucket is basically free.

Most restaurants have no idea what s3 is, much less how to use it.

Then they should just have a big blackboard

> With covid, many restaurants removed paper menus to avoid transmission

Any time a business claims to do something in the name of health or environmentalism, they are actually just using those as an excuse to cut corners.

Cut corners and charge more...

I've been to a restaurant where they raised the prices of drinks to accomodate for using biodegradable plastic cups (sit-in restaurant!)... this is not enviromentalism, this is charging 20c for a 5c cup, instead of using glasses like a normal restaurant.

Also, the reusable cotton bags are just an excuse to charge more, because you'd have to reuse a cotton bag 7100 times, to make it as friendly as using plastic bags ( https://theconversation.com/heres-how-many-times-you-actuall... ). ...of course, paper is rarely an option.

Or, you know, the government is asking them to do it.

Here in Belgium the government asked a lot of mostly useless measures out of our bars and restaurants. You think they're happy paying hundreds, sometimes thousands of euros having Plexiglas screens installed all over the place, inconveniencing customers and staff alike?

That is all fine, but then they should find a better way to secure their WiFi Network to allow easy access to the Menu

I.e Not have a captive portal if your only going to the menu, have the captive portal if you want full access to the internet

Clearly they cheaped out on hiring a network company that setup their wifi wrong

If I have jump through a bunch of hurtles to view your menu I am out

Adding the next hurdle and man-in-the-middle with "Apple Pay"?

Apple Pay is no more of a hurdle/mitm than whatever payment gateway they were using.

Things are not "good" because somebody made you feel it is comfortable. 800 Euro for an Apple device, account at Apple, network connection with provider and full battery - together with a credit card and all of that is no hurdle? You can just pay immediately with cash. And nobody will be informed about it! Words of critique upon Apple are usually not welcome here. When I look how bad entitlement handling is with MacOS I have more critique...beware.

I'm not endorsing Apple Pay, but I also don't carry cash, so how am I supposed to pay? Sure I can pay by card, but now the credit card company knows what I'm buying. Also that involves another person who has to come accept the payment which I could've done in peace on my phone using Apple/Google pay. Not everyone want to carry cash around.

I don't have an iPhone. So, recontextualize my comment in that light, and give it a more charitable reading.

Apple pay is, for the poster, a stand in for NFC pay of some sort. Which indeed requires a device, which indeed is its own class of requirement, but also, cash works even if less practical.

However if I happen to have an Apple device it's by far and away the easiest (and most secure) way for me to pay. And yes, I do prioritize places that take Apple Pay over those that do not.

There are lots of iPhone users and often business can getting better (lower) processing fees by accepting more secure methods like Apple pay so if it's literally just flipping a switch and possibly paying a bit less for processing why wouldn't a business do it?

I can already see myself, as a tourist who buys a US SIM card to get data on vacation, having to add a SIM card swap to this ordeal to confirm debit card transaction via my EU phone number. Why, oh why...

Aren't most smartphones dual-sim by now?

No, most aren't.

I would dispute that -- except for iPhones -- almost all the smart phones I've seen sold in Asia are dual SIM.

That could have something to do with it. I've ordered from India before when I wanted a dual sim android. Local stock for that model was single sim only.

Looked at gsmarena now and indeed most models have dual-sim versions (as well as single sim). But when I look at a local store, it seems that roughly 1/2 has dual sims (that's including eSIM).

> sold in Asia

irrelevant.

If we're talking about tourists it definitely isn't. In fact, the phones that are sold in the US are the irrelevant ones.

Well, Asian phones too I suppose. Most Xiaomi phones if not all are dual sim.

I refuse to buy phones from Chinese government majority owned companies tho.

I own Samsungs, and they are all dual SIMS.

My understanding is that the current iPhones offer both a traditional SIM card slot along with an esim, which gives you the option of two sims provided one of the carriers supports esim.

I also believe that current iPhones sold in China support two physical SIM cards and no esim.

Only in some nations.

Some nations even have laws that prohibit selling phones locked to a particular cell provider.

Could make life easier for tourists wanting to get round a language barrier.

They will have paper menus available as well. Don't panic.

I would have left after 1 minute. Enough restaurants that work without this bullshit. Plus I can't scan a QR code at all with my phone.

Or you could ask for a printed menu, it's not hard. Every place I've been to with QR cards has that option. The sense of entitlement and grumpiness these days is unsettling.

I had a completely different situation last year. Checked in via QR (no account needed), ordered my drinks, got them quick, could also pay them with PayPal. The last thing was great because I hate waiting for a waiter to get my bill and pay it. And I could add tips in this 'app' as well. But maybe I was just lucky that my first experience with QR-codes in a restaurant was so positive.

I’m not pulling my phone out at dinner.

I've had similar really good experiences, but it's probably just luck. The last place I went to they used https://pos.toasttab.com/. It was quick, easy, everyone at the table was able to pay for their own food without having to worry about dividing up the bill, it was easy to order additional items without having to wait for the waiter to come around, etc. And, fwiw, it didn't seem to affect the social aspect of my dinner at all. Normally we all would have been sitting quietly looking at the menu, instead we all sat quietly and looked at our phones. After we ordered, everyone put their phones away and we had a good time.

It's been hit and miss. I've had good and bad. The best I've found are;

1. QR code to PDF of full actual menu. If they direct you to a HTML page is usually awful and is accordion based mobile UI that involves a bunch of clicking in and out. A PDF can be zoomed in/out but all the content is right there.

2. QR code to pay. This is great when it comes on your bill and you can just pay and leave. However, if it allows Apple pay it's very smooth. Unfortunately, most of the systems involve a web based checkout flow including manual credit card entry and capturing more info than is really needed (email/phone) so they can spam you later.

Is the online ordering system a cost cutting measure to save on staff or seen as a user benefit?

If you're "good" at marketing, both.

this.

I do not miss 400 options(!) nor the icky stick menus that sticks together like a 80's playboy magazine. Its good to see digital revolution embrace restaurants. I'd much rather struggle with my phone and my own grime than fiddling with the menu.

It’s hostile to the experience. It takes me out of why I went to a restaurant I the first place. I want to sit down and focus on my present company and forget about my digital life. This isn’t a new experience, Red Robin and Ruby Tuesday have/had a tablet checkout system that was a chore to use. I started removing restaurants that used similar systems from my rotation because they ruin the experience.

It's hostile to your experience; others (me included) find QR codes quite handy and saving time and efforts

QR codes are a tool. It isn't the fault of the hammer that sometimes they are used to kill people. Likewise it isn't the fault of QR codes that many times they are used for something that isn't useful (at least they can't kill). When I'm at a museum I love the ability to scan a QR code and get a lot of detailed information that wouldn't fit on a sign - but often I just want the small sign and then I move on to the next exhibit.

a great combination is a short summary with a QR code for more info if you want it. It doesn't have to be rocket surgery.

Where do they work well? I still have to pull out my phone and switch to the camera app, open a browser to whatever link is in the qr code. This process is already too many points of failure.

Not to mention tedious

> Connect to the wifi, get a captive portal

> Need to put my phone number in to connect to the wifi; there is no signal, so I need to go outside, to receieve the confirmation code.

Somewhere around these steps is where I would leave. It’s the equivalent of sitting at a table for 15 minutes waiting for the waiter to give my group menus[1] - they don’t want me as their guest.

[1] It happened, both the waiting and the leaving before ever getting menus. That restaurant taught me that if the service is bad before even ordering the food one shouldn’t be afraid to leave.

I fully agree with the addition that personal interaction can make waiting for 15 minutes acceptable if a reasonable explanation is given. I can accept that something has gone wrong if somebody feels responsible and apologizes for the mishap. It might even develop into an occasion for a welcome chat with restaurant staff. For instance, I recently visited a newly opened restaurant at its 2nd day where we had to wait for the food very long. The server apologized and talked about the challenges they've encountered, and gave us a free soup with bread. This can still be annoying if you are in a hurry. However, we were not and so it gave us the opportunity to get in touch with the new staff, increasing the likelihood of us going back there.

In a non-personal QR code setup, on the other hand, responsibility is shifted to some bureaucratic process which is nothing but frustrating.

As noted in the article, most/many people do not go out for diner to quickly buy and consume a meal, but to spend nice time with people. 15 minutes waiting time spent chatting with a waiter or with each other even has the potential to contribute to a positive experience, whereas 15 minutes setting up your smartphone definitely does not.

> I fully agree with the addition that personal interaction can make waiting for 15 minutes acceptable if a reasonable explanation is given.

Absolutely. In this case however, there were multiple waiters refusing eye contact while passing right by our table and there were also other tables right by ours that got there after us and was being taken care of. It was as if we weren’t there.

Toxic culture with no team work. You were in someone else's section. You weren't in a restaurant but at a feeding trough.

> Absolutely. In this case however, there were multiple waiters refusing eye contact while passing right by our table and there were also other tables right by ours that got there after us and was being taken care of. It was as if we weren’t there.

I would just leave to be honest

Agreed, technology doesn't need to be everywhere. Id be happy with a couple of chalk boards that can be moved around.

I do that the instant they don't have physical menus. Saves a lot of stress.

I think your equivalence to sitting at the table and waiting 15 mins for the menu is key. If any audience - say less tech literate - struggles to get the menu up for longer than they would wait to receive a menu from a waiter, then its not worth it, and something needs to change.

what if I dont have smartphone?

Then sucks for you.

There's not enough people in the demographics the restaurant cares about to make an accommodation.

It's like when people complain pages are broken when they turn off JavaScript.

I guess I must be happy that I can still pay with real money or perform contactless payment with cards

Buddy how did you not just leave the place as soon as you saw there's no network connection ?

This is just yet another way to monetize people data. I saw that once and left the restaurant. There was no technical problem to solve here. Give paper with checkboxes it is much more convenient.

I would use a QR menu to browse, if it works well enough, and otherwise ask for a real menu or else just leave.

What I will not do is make accounts, or fill in an online order form. And I will not give out any personal information, including my email, without very good reason.

Last year here in Germany the government started to require restaurants to take down the name, address, phone number of every customer, so they could contact trace if there was an outbreak. Fine by me, in these special circumstances. But one restaurant we visited actually had a waiter show up with a tablet showing some online form I was supposed to fill out. I told her "No thanks, please get me a piece of paper and I will write it down". The owner then came with pen and paper, and we had a nice and friendly chat. He explained that he wanted to make it easy and "cool" with tech. It also turned out that his "tech-wiz" nephew had coded up that online form for him last minute (very cliché :p). I explained to him that while understandable, it's actually harder for a lot of people to type on these things (including me to a degree) than use a pen and paper - the owner thought for a few moments and admitted that he too finds it easier to use a real pen "at his age" - and that storing this kind of information in digital form is just one mishap away from really angry (former) customers and GDPR penalties, and how managing this kind of data is actually harder to get right in digital form than collecting some pieces of paper and running them through the shredder some 4 weeks later. We visited the same place about a month later, and they had switched to pen and paper entirely. I like to think our talk helped them with that decision.

I cannot really fault that owner. He was trying to do the best in a suddenly changed and shitty situation, and in his line of business he didn't really have to deal with privacy issues and the associated dangers and regulations before, other than cashless payments where the payment processor does most of the heavy lifting and compliance anyway.

Yea; that's a clearly broken system. 2-3 clicks to look at menu is fine. Filling in credit card info in-phone is too far.

On the general topic of "technology in restaurants", I've noticed an increasing number of restaurants where the waitstaff uses phones/tablets with some kind of specialized app. This happens often: we start telling them our order, and they have to say "wait a sec.... (taps phone for several seconds) okay what was that?". The "UX" as a patron is pretty bad compared to the waitstaff just whipping out a notepad and scribbling as we order, or better yet memorizing the orders.

Several of the large chains already have pay at table kiosk's I have always wondered why they just do not have order at table as well...

I am waiting for the first restaurant that only has Cooks and Food Runners with no traditional waitstaff...

This will likely coincide with the removal of tipping as a custom in the US. We will move to kiosk ordering, press a button to get drink refills, pay at the table, and leave.

I absolutely stopped going to restaurants that have those table tablets. It's just too distracting.

hmm, I prefer them. I never liked handing my card to wait staff where they take off somewhere..

I 100% prefer pay at table, and would 100% prefer order at table as well, less chance they get my order wrong

Those tablets range from "large-screen credit card terminal with order entry" to "brightly flashing ad-infested slot machine exploitation box that might let you order food if you figure out how to close the fucking ads. With a cloud-connected webcam, because why not".

Actually, now that I've think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen the "large-screen credit card terminal with order entry" version in real life.

So you trust them to cook your food, but you are worried they will take off with your card? Do you live in a first world country or a failed state?

Some would argue the US is both.

never heard of card skimming have you?

Not really in a first world country, no…

Well then I guess the US is not the first world by your definition since it is very common. Less so with more Chip systems but it is still an issue even today

> I never liked handing my card to wait staff where they take off somewhere..

Just realized this is another problem averted by Chip+PIN for payments. Since you have to physically touch the keypad, there's reason to take you to the PoS terminal, or the terminal to you, and no reason to take the card from you.

Chip+Pin is not really used in the US at all.

Chip+Sign is what we have here. I dont even know what my PIN would be for my Credit Card, Pin's are only really used for Debit cards but I almost never use my Debit card for anything at all.

Applebees allows you to order from the kiosk. I bet that after a few times of doing that you could get a situation where the waitress would recognize you and not even stop by until she's bringing your order.

I still feel that these products are "sold" to restaurants and aren't actually all they're cracked up to be.

> only has Cooks and Food Runners with no traditional waitstaff

They've had this in Japan since before tablets in the form of vending machine restaurants. You order and pay at a vending machine and get a ticket, you sit down and hand in your ticket, and someone brings the food to your table.

I haven't been in many years, I guess now they have touch screen kiosks instead of old school vending machines.

I loved those as a tourist that doesn't speak any Japanese. The touch screens would always have an English option.

Have you been to a buffet?

not recently, most of the buffet's around me closed permanently due to covid, while we did allow indoor dinning, their was a ban of self service food.

A few converted to carry out only, and have not gone back to buffet style.

There are still a few open of course but no where near as many, and the ones that survived seems to be of lesser quality

My favorite UX mental game is "Can you describe the paper interface as a new, innovative system relative to the technology solution?"

So with the paper pad waitress experience:

1. Responsive, zero latency interactions. 2. Accepts free form text entry. 3. No multi step UI control lookups. 4. Allows entry of customer modifications and requests to items. 5. Allows custom abbreviations.

Etc. etc.

Supports every written alphabet out of the box, including custom emoji. Compatible with any brand of stylus. Can run thousands of games. Can go years without a charge. Never needs OS updates. Sustainable, recyclable, compostable.

Flashlight mode doesn't last very long, though.

> Flashlight mode doesn't last very long, though.

Is flashlight mode when you set it on fire?

> Compatible with any brand of stylus.

Well except, you know, literally a stylus.

I see this as the beginnings of a comedy bit. A group of people around a confernece table with someone presenting their slide deck. Maybe the conference table is replaced with "sharks" in cushy chairs?? At the end the presenter says "and now let me show you my invention" while reaching into back pocket to whip out a spiral bound note pad with a pencil in the spiral. "Oh, one more thing... It comes with its own iPencil holder"

My biggest cheapskate-old-man gripe is how the UX as you said is systemically deteriorating in restaurants yet the tip expectations have creeped up from 15% standard to now 25% default. And, all apps that compute tip % or recommended tip amounts tip on top of tax, which really irks me as just a dark pattern to rip off patrons and inflate the tip amount. This is US tipping culture at absolute worse.

I hold at 15% standard. Yet, many apps have defaults for 18%, 20%, 22%... all way up to 30% from what I've seen. And, they allow me to "Custom Tip" which I do once I find it (it's usually small and text instead of a button like the presets). However, once you select custom I'm back into dollars instead of percents so I have to do the math myself (and I don't even remember what the total was by this screen). At this point, I'm feeling like "okay you just don't want my money then because I'm not a whale of a tipper" so I have as some act of defiance started just skipping it altogether. I know it's not fair for that server but it's what little I can do to voice my dissent of the system.

You're not really voicing your dissent at that point. The server gets no tip and doesn't get any indication why. Why not just bring cash to tip? Or call the restaurant and talk to the manager? Not tipping doesn't accomplish anything and the server who has no control over the system and is already underpaid gets screwed over.

> Why not just bring cash to tip? Or call the restaurant and talk to the manager?

We're talking patron UX here and point is I don't what to shoulder the burden. I didn't even want to calculate 15% tip in my head and you want me to start carrying cash everywhere, something I haven't done since Y2K was a concern. Spend 15 minutes waiting for the manager to come over? No thanks.

> Not tipping doesn't accomplish anything and the server who has no control over the system and is already underpaid gets screwed over.

I view that as "not my problem". I know it's wrong if the server gets screwed, I'm not arguing this is a just behavior on my part. But, if you extrapolate my behavior to all patrons the restaurant would get a hint real quick that people didn't want to tip 20%/25% and reduce the defaults. They know I'm dissenting it's just that I'm the only one dissenting so they're not even paying attention. Instead, what is happening is the opposite. Patrons were conditioned that 15% is too low. 20% is now standard, pushing up to 25% which will be standard in a couple years if trend continues.

FWIW, I hate tipping in general. I wish they were paid a fair wage and I was billed appropriately on the front end.

Not only does the "recommended" tipping amount keep going up, but in a lot of discussions there's the additional bullshit of waiters saying "Well 25% is the bare minimum, (if you're a total jerk), but if you tip 35% we'll really take care of you!"

To me, a waiter provides no value at all. I'd rather order at a counter and pick up the food myself. Then I don't have someone asking me "how is everything" when my mouth is full. I don't need to pay someone a 30% cut for this.

Yes. The discussions I've seen from waiter expectations like you mention is what has soured me the most on tipping.

Also, I don't feel like my check size is very related to the amount of work involved. At least in my 95% use case of 2-4 people. The waiter does the same thing, checks in on us just as much, still juggling 5-10 other tables. I'm there for an hour. I just don't see $15-30 of value in the service I got during my interaction (my typical check size is $50-100), that's where I land back on my 15% standard. I don't always see that value either, but it's what helps me sleep at night.

If I'm with 5+ people or stay longer than an hour or am eating at a higher priced place where waiter is probably serving fewer tables simultaneously then I adjust accordingly.

Another irk of mine is how alcohol falls into this equation. If I buy a $50 bottle of wine I'm supposed to give $10 tip when usually all they do is open the bottle? My rule is a dollar per serving. It's probably outdated rule and needs some adjustment for inflation as that's been my rule for a long time.

>It's probably outdated rule and needs some adjustment for inflation

Honestly if the minimum wage was increased appropriately we wouldn't have to bother with tipping at all.

This is the real problem. Unfortunately big business has politicians by the balls, so this is unlikely to happen.

Billionaires get tax breaks while the lowest-paid workers buying power goes down every year without fail.

And no guillotines because they're all too busy trying to keep their head above water. GG billionaires.

< FWIW, I hate tipping in general. I wish they were paid a fair wage and I was billed appropriately on the front end.

In several states they are. Washington St. doesn't have a lower minimum wage for servers.

I've visited and really enjoyed that model. I'm in Texas and we're not progressive at all in this realm; or many other realms when comparing to a progressive state like Washington.

You are still expected to tip the same as other states with the $2.13 minimum for tipped employees. In fact, you should be tipping more, so goes the rule of thumb, since cost of living is higher.

In Washington? I don't recall that being the case. I was there around the time they converted about 5 years ago and there were signs everywhere saying that the prices may seem high because they pay their people a living wage. I have to assume that means living wage locally. If waitstaff is wanting a regular tip now, it's just a naturally greedy thing to want as much compensation as you can get. Have their cake and eat it too. American's are passive on this in general and don't negotiate well (we're not used to it). So I think we tend to feel guilted into sheepish behavior instead of challenging the "rule of thumb". The reality is, some jobs just aren't meant to earn big bucks. I support a minimum wage, but you also have to realize that means minimum lifestyle.

Pre-pandemic, some restaurants in my area started adding separate tip lines for servers and kitchen staff. While nice in theory as a way to recognize the work they do it left me feeling confused more than anything. Am I still expected to tip 15-20% or more to the server AND an additional amount to the rest of the staff? Do I split my regular tip amongst both lines? If so, 50-50 or some other breakdown.

In the end, I left my usual tip to the server and zero to the rest and left it for them to figure out, just like in every other restaurant on the planet. Servers make full, much higher than Federal minimum wage in my state plus tips, so really we should be abolishing tipping at this point IMO.

"just like in every other restaurant on the planet"

You mean just like every restaurant in USA. I rarely tip in France, only if I had a really special interaction with the waiter/waitress. Once it was because the waitress was a student we chit chat a bit and ended up talking programming (!). I never tipped once in China (nobody does it there)

I'm pretty sure most patrons would not be comfortable with the server losing money for something they have no control over. I'm certainly not going to refuse to tip them to make some kind of statement that only punishes them.

I guess I don't know how you go from the idea that you are accomplishing nothing while making someone else's day worse to being able to say "not my problem" and go on with your life.

I would much rather they were paid a fair wage. But I'm not going to voice my opinion on that matter by refusing to give them the money that I personally factor in as part of a meal anyway. I get where you're coming from, but I don't see how this method of addressing it is intended to accomplish anything.

> Why not just bring cash to tip

If the point is not to keep calculating the tip, that's worse. And then we would need to wait to get the change on the tip?

>Not tipping doesn't accomplish anything and the server who has no control over the system and is already underpaid gets screwed over.

What a curious statement, American Stockholm Syndrome in full effect.

I'm in Australia and tipping is only really done in the case of exceptional service. The price on the menu is the price you pay. Nobody feels animosity towards someone who pays the price on the menu, and nobody feels guilt for "only" paying the price that was specified.

Also nobody would expect sub-par service or to be disparaged if they don't pay more, as sibling commenters have mentioned.

Much simpler for everyone - why should customers have to do convoluted maths to work out how much to subsidize a business that can't afford to pay their workers? That is pretty much the definition of an unviable business.

A related problem with the apps is that they expand the tipping expectation to all sorts of interactions that were not traditionally tipped, such as ordering at a cash register. You don't need to tip someone just because they have an iPad!

Agree. The worst are the little vendors. I want to support you and all because I love your small batch popsicles, that's why I'm paying $7 each. But, you just took it out of a freezer and handed it to me, this is a pure retail transaction at this point. It's like going to 7-11 and saying, I need $20 on pump 8 and here's $5 for your trouble...

Yep - and now the waitstaff will gossip about you behind your back, give you bad service and thing you’re grumpy old man.

You thought you were dissenting, but it mostly just reflects poorly on you.

Source - brother is a server.

I don't care what someone that behaves that way thinks of me. I seldom repeat to places with bad service. Or if I do, I seldom see the same waiter. In reality, this has zero impact on me except further diminishes my opinion of the "profession" which goes back to my original comment about degrading service and increasing expectations ($) being at conflict

If I have to do math and input in dollar, I do 10%, which is easier to calculate

I've thought about this. My "15%" standard in application is more like. 10% + 50% of 10%, ambiguously round to whole dollar. So if the bill was $45, I think, $4.5 + about $2 is $6.5 so I'll give $6 but maybe I go $7. I never do cents unless it's to force the total to a whole dollar amount (rare).

I'm moving towards a fixed amount. Since, as I mentioned elsewhere I don't see a strict correlation between menu price and work performed. The amount of work to bring me a steak is same as work to bring me a burger; but the steak might cost 3x more. Majority of dining experiences follow the same script and same amount of interaction with waitstaff so I'm thinking of just giving everyone $X and don't even consider what I spent. Maybe adjust up if we had appetizers, extra beverages, or some difficult situation. Having a toddler, I've left my fair share of huge "sorry for the mess" tips and that doesn't bother me at all.

The only QR related issue here is lack of signal, everything else is irrelevant

You shouldn't need internet connectivity or a smart phone to view the menu.

Agreed

Why? its 2021. Everything is connected. You're on a hacker website.

Not everything is online and many things that are were better off when they weren't.

I'd leave as soon as I could not use the system without connecting to their WiFi, and especially if it required any personal information at all to do so. I have a VPN, but that's just too much.

These places are unwittingly teaching their customers that they'll have a superior experience by using a food delivery service such as Uber Eats.

Having to have a phone signal to receive a wifi confirmation code is one of my least favorite things ever.

Had a similar experience: this awesome takeaway / pizza place had an ordering system completely online, great!

The only downside? After deciding what to eat, adding the table number and pressing "order"... you discover that you can only pay by credit card (I mostly use debit).

No option to pay in cash. I had to go to the cashier, re-order everything, tell her my table number and pay in cash.

Not that huge of a deal, first world problems, but still - they could have stated right away the payment methods for the online thing.

So, if they have a captive portal, why not put the menu there before you login? That would even make the QR code a moot point, scan QR code or just connect to the wifi and menu magically appears…

Pretty poor design not to disable auth for the ordering system domain.

That sounds excruciating. Would absolutely make my blood boil. I had the opposite experience today:

Arrive at the table, scan the QR code

Connect to the wifi, just a short PSK, no captive portal

Order food from web page (no registration or account, the QR code is already set up to be my table). Extra-options for the dishes available.

Initiate second order, add some 0-cost salt, mayo, and water.

Payment didn't involve the website at all, just paid at the register with cash like normal.

At no point was I urged to enter any personal information or install an app.

Just tell them your phone is not working, and ask for a menu.

It's really interesting to see how a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way are so quick to attack and be negative.

Like all things in life, when its implemented well it works and when it does not it is terrible. I still think there is room for this to be the future though. I say this as a westerner but perhaps the west is not ready for it yet but I really enjoyed the experience of using QR codes in China. Go to a restaurant I just get shown where to sit and don't need to waste time with the host/server giving me menus or telling me anything. If I have questions they are there to answer the but I can also just sit down, scan the QR code, menu opens up and I can order food. Food just shows up minutes later. When I am done I go to the front and pay with Alipay.

The benefits to me of not having physical menus is huge. From the business perspective there is less interaction time necessary to serve a diner. Sure if this is an upscale high touch experience physical menu is where it stays BUT the majority of dining experiences are not like this. The menu is up to date and easy to modify. Possible to include multiple pictures and information about the food.

I might be wild but I really like the experience and wish more places would adopt it. Like all things I think here in the west its still too new so we have a mixed bag of good and bad implementations. Give it a few years and I think it will be narrowed down to the POS providers who offer it as a feature.

It's odd because it almost seems like a middle ground of having both options is unacceptable. It's chalk and cheese, black or white.

You can literally have both physical and digital menu's and cater to everyone's needs. No harm done.

People who loathe the idea can carry on, people that love the idea can carry on.

That's what I'm seeing at restaurants around here, both options. Default to digital, with the offer of a physical menu if you need. It's nice. Is that not common?

Going from the mass hate for QR code menus you would think not? Honestly, what's up with these polar opposites on HN. Never a middle ground.

Having both could cause issues, as the digital menu is much easier to update than the physical one, which can lead to inconsistencies. Not that it means it shouldn't be an option, it's just something that needs to be considered

This is very true.

I wonder how often restaurants change their menus. I live on the coast of Poland and 5 years later of living here, I can probably tell you what the menu is for the 5 'hot' locations to go to because it literally hasn't changed.

Then you might wonder whether the restaurant can't change their menus often because paper menu is hard to change!

I would think a paper menu will be easier to change?

Depends on the restaurant. Cooks are human too, so some will get bored after making the same exact thing for a year. Others might never get bored after a decade, or decide to keep making a dish because it sells well.

Inconsistency between the digital and physical menu isn't really the problem. We care more about consistency between either menu and the single source of truth, which is what the chef is able to prepare today.

Depends on what the inconsistency is. You order something from the menu and later find out it's more expensive and the updated price is only shown in the digital menu. Depending on where you are that'd be an instant win in court I believe.

Main downside: I don't always take my phone with me. I don't hate QR code, but adding a "backup" menu that is accessible without phones is a must I believe.

Agreed - I actually don't mind the QR thing when done elegantly (it often isn't but that's not the QR's fault) but what about travelers without a phone plan? Or folks who don't want to carry a phone?

If you're going to print out a half dozen menus, you're pretty much right back where you started.

this whole pandemic thing really worried me. I leave my phone at home on purpose all the time. I really struggled with everything from food to doctors. phones are becoming a requirement.

I still have my phone with me when I leave the house, but because now I work from home and don't need much mobil data, I downgraded my data plan to 250mb per month.

I can see at some point I'll try to open a menu but won't be successful

On the flip side, I don't always take my wallet with me. It seems a lot easier to go phone only (especially in China) than wallet only.

> The benefits to me of not having physical menus is huge.

"Huge" might be a bit of an overstatement relating to such a minor convenience.

So you are speaking for my opinions and feelings now? Y'all are crazy.

I guess passing accusations of hyperbole are violence now.

This process was one of my most hated "innovations" in food ordering in China. It turns every restaurant into a production line fast food operation, exactly like American chain restaurants. At that point, why even bother going to a restaurant at all? Might as well just order a Sysco-equivalent microwave meal at the supermarket or 7/11, because the flavor and the service will be exactly the same.

For me the best restaurants in China were the mom and pop joints where the person who takes your order is also the person who cooks your meal, or at least where you can see into the kitchen from the dining room so you can call out a request or ask a question as they're preparing it. This way it's much easier to figure out what's in the dish, see if the food is fresh, ask for it a bit more spicy, add another side, whatever. It makes the meal into a more of a social experience, and something that feels homey and satisfying rather than mass-produced.

Ironically going to these sorts of Chinese chain restaurants with the QR code menu, they also tended to be twice the price of the mom and pop joints, so whatever money they might be saving by eliminating a server is definitely not passed down to the consumer.

Yeah, QR code menus are superior, until you have to use them. They never have instructions and every device does it differently and not in obvious ways. The only instructions you get from a stressed out server is "just scan it." Ok, how?

This is a great way of making tech look stupid to luddites and it reminds me of modern UX trends that expect people to just know how to do some mysterious thing--and developers rely on most users assuming they are the stupid ones because they don't know how to use an app's hidden functionality. Not. Accessible.

Every restaurant used to have the same UX, now they are all different. Stupid.

It's also super fun to download a 45mb menu on your cellular data plan every time you want to look at the menu.

Exciting positive answers to this problem would be:

1) All such restaurants offering free open wifi + 2) A commercialized system that hosts the menu PDFs on tiny https servers on the restaurant's wifi router and serves them locally (potentially avoiding issues with far-away outages and also saving on the internet bandwidth for the common case).

Now I have to connect to their wifi before I can see the menu? And the restaurant is expected to maintain a menu server? What is MORE practical about this?

No, you can use your cellular connection all you want. It'll just eat your data. If you want to trade a little effort for a little data saving, that option is open to you.

That depends on whether the @ff317's solution (2) also includes availability over the internet.

They can change prices and/or update the menu at any time and they avoid printing, storing, handing out, collecting, and cleaning the physical menus.

An appliance menu server would cost practically nothing if they're already offering Wi-Fi or use electronic POS/ordering systems.

I don't understand the "now they're all different" facet of this. In my experience during the pandemic, they are all the same, just in a way that is not discoverable, as you point out. But after the first time I realized I just needed to open my camera app to make it work, it became a really nice experience. There is a balance here - discoverability is good until it becomes clutter because nobody needs to discover it anymore because it is commonplace, and symmetrically a mechanism that is quick and easy but lacks discoverability is bad until it becomes commonplace and second nature. A great example of this is the mechanisms to open camera apps on phones (which this QR menu thing builds on!): there is no way to discover that I need to press my power button twice to open my camera, but once I know this and it is second nature, there is absolutely no better way to accomplish that task.

Interesting, so the presence of a QR menu is a restaurant-quality filter perhaps.

If they have a QR menu move on until you find one that does not ... you are likely getting a more authentic meal.

>This process was one of my most hated "innovations" in food ordering in China. It turns every restaurant into a production line fast food operation, exactly like American chain restaurants. At that point, why even bother going to a restaurant at all? Might as well just order a Sysco-equivalent microwave meal at the supermarket or 7/11, because the flavor and the service will be exactly the same.

I usually can't stand comments that are just "correlation does not imply causation," but are you sure you aren't mixing up the two here? It's not hard to imagine why a McDonalds wouldn't be one of the first to pick this kind of technology up, but I have a hard time that a previously good restaurant that adopts this will suddenly have their quality fall down the shitter. Nothing really changes for the wait staff except now the order shows up on a screen instead of a handwritten form.

>For me the best restaurants in China were the mom and pop joints where the person who takes your order is also the person who cooks your meal, or at least where you can see into the kitchen from the dining room

There's a similar sort of thing in Japan, but with older technology. You place your order with an automated kiosk out in front of the restaurant and pay the machine. It spits out a ticket that you hand to whoever and eventually your food comes to you. It exists at large chains as well as some mom and pop places, including some where you're sat eating your food a few feet from the cook/chef. The places I went to that had these didn't seem to suffer from lower quality than their counterparts without such a system that didn't have it, nor did they feel more "mass-produced."

My comment wasn't very clear. What I was getting at - and perhaps this is a China-specific issue - is that the QR code style restaurants are imo a symptom of gentrification and are contributing to the "blandification" of local cuisines.

In China restaurants can go under very quickly - you might see at a certain location two or three different restaurants in a year. The mom and pop operations tend to be eaten up by the national chain restaurants and "hip" (i.e. QR code ordering) franchises, and when one of these restaurants moves in then not only does the food quality go down, but the prices go up too. I think a lot of young Chinese techies like the change because it seems more clean or more hygienic or more futuristic, but if you just want to sit down and get some local food made by a local person, that experience is harder and harder to find.

> I usually can't stand comments that are just "correlation does not imply causation," but are you sure you aren't mixing up the two here?

FWIW I didn't read the gp's comment as implying causation. I read it purely as correlation. That restaurants that use these systems are much more likely to use other cost saving "short cuts" as well. Just because someone notes a correlation does not mean they imply a causal relationship between the two. Correlation, even without causation, can still be highly useful. Lack of causation does not equate to spurious correlations[0]. You'll note that on this website that the problem isn't that one doesn't cause the other, but rather that there's no reason to suspect these factors are correlated in the first place, and that correlation does not imply connection.

[0] https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

How does ordering via QR code change the quality of the food itself? Just because you clicked a button to order the food instead of telling a server what you want who then wrote it in a notebook and went back to a terminal to enter it, should not have any bearing on how the food tastes.

The QR code doesn't change the quality of the food. It's just a correlation that the restaurants that moved to a QR code ordering system tended to also be the ones that hired kids who didn't much care about cooking, and who just produced the same bland dish every time, regardless of who was ordering.

I do my best to eat plant-based most of the time, so I always appreciate when I can have a chat to the cook or server to see what is in the dish and if they can avoid garnishing with ground pork or whatever. To me that's the whole point of going to a restaurant, to have someone cook for you personally. If you're just going to get a production line meal, then you might as well order from a vending machine or get a meal to go from a convenience store. No judgment on those meals, they are fine too, but when I go to a restaurant I expect a bit more of a personalized service.

> also be the ones that hired kids who didn't much care about cooking, and who just produced the same bland dish every time, regardless of who was ordering

I personally go to restaurants for consistency. Do you really think waiters taking orders pass along information about who ordered the order and their preferences? You can give instructions to the waiter but from my experience it's not carried a large chunk of the time. Every layer is a place for miscommunication, so going consumer -> app -> cook is a lot less likely to be messed up than consumer -> waiter -> notebook? -> terminal -> cook. There's generally a high turnover for waiters and I don't think they're all super informed about the meals, but I guess it depends what restaurant you go to. But with online ordering a restaurant that can't afford to have a highly trained wait staff can still deliver high quality information to customers

You can provide a lot more information on an app about a dish, including pictures, ingredients and customization options than a person.

I think there is a misunderstanding in this thread about what types of restaurants provide these QR code ordering systems in China.

From my perspective, if I need to use an app to select my dish, applying only the pre-approved customizations, then the experience is no different from ordering delivery. If you live in the US, then perhaps this experience is not unusual, since it's a lot like the experience of visiting a chain restaurant - same menu in every location, same customizations available, same "perky" waitstaff, same supplier of ingredients behind the scenes - it's basically just a more expensive version of fast food. Adding a QR code ordering system to this kind of restaurant is not changing much about the experience other than the speed of ordering.

But in other countries - notably China - there is a whole nother class of restaurants that is both cheaper and more personalized than a chain. And these family-owned restaurants are the ones that are being edged out by more expensive, less culinarily interesting restaurants whose primary appeal appears to be gimmicky apps that provide either the same or less functionality than a food delivery app does.

It might be that these chain restaurants are successful because a lot of people prioritize consistency over everything else. But I feel like in China in particular it is more trend- and status-based. People think it's cool to order on their phones instead of talking to the server, or they think it's classy to eat what the folks in Shanghai are eating instead of the local food from their region.

Personally, I would prefer to see more local restaurants and less chains, not just in China but everywhere in the world. I understand that's an orthogonal issue to QR code ordering, just in China it does appear to be correlated.

What changes is you no longer have a customer service rep on the line, which is what you de facto have with a server at your table. I could ask them questions about all sorts of specific ingredients on the menu so I end up guessing nothing about what I am ordering. For online menus, sometimes you take a shot into the dark because you can't get any description on the item besides "89. - Orange chicken" or however it comes up on the online menu. Does it come with rice? How big is the portion? Who knows.

Most ordering-apps I've tried allow customers to customize items and make special-requests. It's often easier to do these things on an app, and these modifications are automatically reflected on the receipt.

I guess an app could give people access to a webcam to engage in discussion with a cook as they prepare the food, for people who really want to watch the process and talk to the cook.. is that a feature you'd be interested in?

I mean, obviously, that wouldn't be right for a lot of places -- many eateries don't want people bothering the kitchen staff -- but if you've been going to places where people can interact with the kitchen-staff as they work, and if that's something the customers value, it'd seem like that process could be made more available.

Edit: Actually, when you were talking about engaging kitchen-staff, were you thinking of places like Subway? Or did you mean actually talking to people in a separate-kitchen, like you walk back there and chat with them while they make the food?

I believe they’re referring to places small enough and slightly open so that you can see the few kitchen workers.

I ran into a few of those mom and pop joints in Korea as well. Basically every 김밥 (kimbap) shop is kinda like subway where you can see them prepare the food.

I believe they were talking about how interacting with an actual human is part of the experience of going out for them. And just going to a restaurant in order to fiddle with a menu screen and order kind of defeats the purpose since you could just do that with takeout? It doesn’t bother me either way, but I prefer restaurants that have a button on the table to call the server.

I think my comment is a bit centered around the Chinese experience.

A lot of smaller Chinese restaurants are just one guy at a wok standing near the entrance and a bunch of stools inside (sometimes also outside). They're commonly a husband and wife team, where the husband cooks and the wife acts as a runner or takes orders when it's too busy to bark what you want at the cook, but sometimes it's just the one person. If you get there early, sometimes the wife is preparing mise en place at one of the tables, or on a stool out front.

Another common layout for larger restaurants is tables and stools on the inside plus a small counter to pay, but there's a window at the back going into the kitchen where they might have a couple of cooks and more space to prep.

In both of these cases it's not unusual for customers to know the owners and engage in some smalltalk, whether about the food, or whatever other thing. It's a lot like a classic diner in the US, or a UK "caff".

These QR code ordering systems tend to be in place at a different type of restaurant. They are more like strip mall chain restaurants with optimized seating and standardized menus and nobody knows anyone or cares. Personally I don't see the point of these sorts of places, because if you're just getting Sysco-style meals without any service then you could cut out the middle man and buy the meal without going to a restaurant.

If QR-code based ordering doesn't decrease the quality of the food (I think everyone agrees it doesn't) why should others have to subsidize your 'personal touch' experience paying higher prices for increased wait staff attention when they may be OK with (and prefer!) impersonal service, which has a built-in lower cost of delivery?

It seems to me your focus is less on the quality of the food (provided it means quality standards) and more about the ambiance and experience of another human catering to your customized requirements. In any other domain this would be a luxury you'd be expected to pay more for.

I say bring on the impersonally delivered, high quality, cheap food!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, this is literally the opposite of my experience. The restaurants where I was made to order by QR code always cost more than the restaurants where I was not. In China, I suspect this is because QR code places tend to be national chains which have some kind of brand name recognition, so people pay more to prove their status.

On top of the increased cost, the food tends to be lower quality, not higher quality, presumably because the ingredients are mass produced and reheated by cooks who don't have any personal reputation at stake if they prepare something poorly. This is exactly what chain restaurants in the west are like, and they tend to be a much worse dining experience than either mom and pop or boutique outfits.

I really enjoy reading your comments :) Thanks! And I fully agree with you about how the restaurant restaurant should be.

"I guess an app could give people access to a webcam to engage in discussion with a cook as they prepare the food..."

headdesk

My big issue, which should be easily correctable, is that every menu QR code I've scanned results in a PDF that I have to download.

Nobody wants PDFs. On desktop sites, it's common to add a (PDF Warning) to links that lead to PDFs.

And on a phone, PDFs are even worse. They're almost always sized for the desktop, which means you have to pinch and scroll to see anything, and I don't download stuff from Firefox often enough to know how to find and delete the menus for every single restaurant I eat at.

If the menu QR code led to a responsive website, I'd be fine with it. When the QR code leads to a PDF, it makes me angry. If the QR code led to an app I had to install, I'd walk directly out of the restaurant.

Which mobile browser downloads PDFs instead of just rendering them?

DDG is one example. I prefer it this way because I can choose how to view it, and not have to redownload it in case I lose the page or the cache for the file.

All of them. The data still needs to be downloaded to be rendered.

Firefox Mobile

Maybe there's some setting I'm missing, but the default android experience seems to be Chrome downloads a pdf which then is read by Google drive.

Not really the issue with PDFs. Even if they are directly rendered the problem is they have a non-responsive rendering which forces pinch zoom and scrolling to see/read things.

This was exactly my experience as well when I recently went to some restaurants for the first time since pre-pandemic.

GP's experience sounds great; an interactive mobile/responsive website that I can directly order from would be more convenient than the traditional experience. PDFs are basically fine, but given the option I'd rather have a physical menu.

(Thankfully, I haven't yet heard of or encountered a QR code that redirected me to an app; that would be a pretty quick way to make me leave if no alternative were provided.)

I love scanning a QR code and having a pdf open in my browser. Faster than waiting for wait staff and easier for restaurants to change the menu. I think most people disagree that nobody wants PDFs.

PDFs are better than a paper menu, for sure, but wouldn't you prefer a website that scales properly and allows you to place orders? I think that is the point parent post is making.

> On desktop sites, it's common to add a (PDF Warning) to links that lead to PDFs.

In 2000 maybe?

> It's really interesting to see how a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way are so quick to attack and be negative.

This statement is utterly useless. It provides no value to the discussion, doesn't make any interesting points, and tries to emotionally manipulate the reader.

> Like all things in life, when its implemented well it works and when it does not it is terrible.

HN readers seem to be bearish on these technologies because they're usually implemented poorly, and there's very little reason to believe that the situation will substantially improve anytime soon (or at all). People generally discriminate between restaurants based on price and food, not menus, so there's little incentive for restaurants to improve electronic menus - similar to business websites - meaning that if QR code menus gain wide adoption, we're extremely likely to see significantly worse experiences near-universally.

Even more so: "a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way" are professionally engaged in using, critiquing and developing user interfaces. These are the people you hire to tell you "this wasn't a good idea, here's a better one".

Super-thin phones.

Touch-screen controls in automobiles.

QR codes instead of menus.

All of these things seem nifty to marketing departments, may be accepted by consumers, and are detrimental to actual usage.

> Even more so: "a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way" are professionally engaged in using, critiquing and developing user interfaces.

“I don’t like it” is not a critique though. The people you would want to hire could try to answer “here is an imperfect solution, how would you improve it?”

The article gives reasons why it is an imperfect solution.

The point was not about the article but the "crowd of HN".

> > It's really interesting to see how a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way are so quick to attack and be negative. > This statement is utterly useless. It provides no value to the discussion, doesn't make any interesting points, and tries to emotionally manipulate the reader.

Funny enough this applies more to your statement than the statement you're responding to. They were making a meta-critique of the general discussion here, and I find it to be a legitimate perspective.

Personal sentiments on liking or not liking QR codes, which any lay user can make, does not make as interesting a discussion as a principled approach to what components of the UX flow exactly fails, whether these failures are essential to QR codes or specific to the implementations today, and how/if they could be addressed as an engineering exercise.

It is akin to saying "this first gen ICE automobiles suck, bring back horses" and go on to discuss the annoying doors of the car while the unexploited fertile land of discussions await on the actual engine, cost benefit analyses, incremental improvements, adoption barriers, UX flows etc.

That's a bit like saying "why bother serving wine from bottles with impractical corks, each table should just have a wine hose with a tap". Going to a restaurant is an experience. A waiter, a physical menu and lots of other inefficiencies are part of that experience.

Definitely not the same so please don't imply as such. Everyone has a different taste for their dining experiences definitely. For me, the normal I need something to eat experience does not need a waiter. But definitely if I a going to a nice place to sit, relax, enjoy the service, yes a waiter, paper menu is a nice experience. These are very different segments in the dining market imo. Kind of like how your normal restaurant is not going to use Tock for reservations.

"Wine hose" you say, I'm interested ...

> why bother serving wine from bottles with impractical corks, each table should just have a wine hose with a tap

To be fair, you just 100% described a keg. It's just not common -- or is even non-existent? -- for wine to come in kegs.

Wine is stored in barrels, which is pretty much the same thing, and there is of course the barbaric bag in box, but it’s not served that way in many reputable restaurants…

A little while ago, I was making labels for cannabis products. All cannabis products need to be tested by a lab to show their constituent properties (pesticides, THC, CDB, etc)

One of the things I did was create a QR code on the labels such that they pointed to a bitly address which then redirected to the PDF of the lab results for each product.

This allowed for the consumer to actually read the Lab results, and it provided an litmus to the interest in each product by count of scans.

I loved it, it worked really well - but the company wasnt too fond of showing the direct lab results for the reason that the PDFs had the manufacturing facilities address on the PDF...

Could have done it better, but the overall idea was sound and was very easy to implement. An admin assistant could build this out.

Thought of also tying it to slack or something such that we could just have a product interest channel and get an alert any time the products were scanned into that channel...

There were actually a number of creative things that could be done using QR codes.

This is great for very small packaged goods, such as pre-rolls, wax, diamonds, etc - where you have very little space on the package, and are already regulated on exactly what information you must include on the packaging, so if you wanted to provide more detailed product info, this would work well..

I love this. It reminds me of transparency from amazon. Products have a QR code on the outside of the packaging to have some minimal effort prevention on counterfeits. Includes some metadata like manufacturing date and location.

https://brandservices.amazon.com/transparency

Huh, yeah the basic intent is the same as with Transparency (hadn't heard about that service until today) -- but its super simple to build out, and any company can easily do it...

There is a bad-ass product from Seagull Scientific, called "barTender" (as in Barcode Tender) -- which is free to use, and does any and all barcodes/QR codes - and label document design.

The only cost is a $500/$600 license for actually connecting it to a printer - but it makes it a breeze to create awesome labels, and print them out en-mass (like many thousands on the high speed printers)...

You can hook it up to a DB or a spreadsheet for pulling all your product labeling info easily to fields so they auto fill for the products you are printing.

Also, with using bitly - you also get a map of the geoip location of each scan - so you can see where interest is high geographically...

> It's really interesting to see how a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way are so quick to attack and be negative.

It's really interesting to see how a different crowd to tech workers who are constantly in contact with the myriad of ways in which technology can be harmful to human interaction and happiness can be so quick to downplay any legitimate criticisms.

> Go to a restaurant I just get shown where to sit and don't need to waste time with the host/server giving me menus or telling me anything.

...in which you view a human being as a hurdle to be surpassed rather than a human being.

Conversations with waitstaff are often some of the most rewarding parts of a restaurant experience. Even just focusing on the food, the best way to find out about dishes you haven't tried is by talking to waitstaff. And I've formed great friendships with waitstaff at places I go regularly.

For sure, I guess for me there is a time and place. Sometimes I am eating because I am hungry and sometimes I eat for the experience. For the former I like the idea of using a QR code. I never had troubles in China talking about the food when I used a QR code. I don't have romantic ideas about it though, I still was able to interact with the owners or wait stuff just as easily. Reminded me of the use of vending machine tickets in Japanese mom and pop restaurants.

I see any system that requires people to have and use a smart phone to be negative for inclusivity and accessibility. Use this technology for progessive enhancement, not as a replacement.

Yeah, I could see something like an open restaurant where you come in, scan the QR code, place the order, and get/pay for your food all without really interacting with someone. That'd be great, but I'd want a "push for server" button on every table for people without smart phones or people that don't know how to interact with QR codes.

It certainly could be made super slick (embedding the table number, for example, in each QR code).

But with all that, it'd cost money. So pretty much the only places you'll see do this well are big chains which tend to have crappy food.

> Yeah, I could see something like an open restaurant where you come in, scan the QR code, place the order, and get/pay for your food all without really interacting with someone. That'd be great, but I'd want a "push for server" button on every table for people without smart phones or people that don't know how to interact with QR codes.

Your belief that it's good to cut out a human interaction is one you should reconsider.

I'm open to reconsidering it. What's the evidence that human interaction with restaurant servers is good for either the servers or the person being served? Do people that pack in lunches to work experience lower health than those that eat out?

You're starting from an opinion that you haven't presented any evidence for, and then asking for evidence when someone disagrees with you? Let's be clear here: we're both presenting opinions without scientific studies behind them.

The study you proposed doesn't address the topic at hand, because there's a very large confounding factor: packed lunches are going to have very different foods in them than what you'd get at a restaurant, which has obvious health implications.

I think most people have life experience that shows them that in-person human interaction is a necessary component to human happiness, especially after the pandemic. Maybe somehow you've never experienced or heard other people's experiences of that, but if that's the case, you really should seek out the opinions of people who aren't like you more often. Maybe start with the waitstaff at your local restaurant. ;)

Are you aware that there's a widespread feeling that tech/business folks are out of touch with reality?

> You're starting from an opinion that you haven't presented any evidence for, and then asking for evidence when someone disagrees with you? Let's be clear here: we're both presenting opinions without scientific studies behind them.

Correct. Like most of my life, I have things that are opinions but I'm more than willing to change my mind if evidence comes along.

And to be clear, I did not make any assertions with my initial post about health and wellbeing from contactless ordering. It was you that came here to tell me:

> Your belief that it's good to cut out a human interaction is one you should reconsider.

The quote you quoted said nothing to that effect.

Personally, I don't believe it has an effect one way or the other. My opinion is this would probably only really matter for someone who's only social interactions came from talking to the waitstaff. That'd be a pretty rare individual.

> I think most people have life experience that shows them that in-person human interaction is a necessary component to human happiness

Correct, I don't disagree with this

> Maybe somehow you've never experienced or heard other people's experiences of that

Incorrect. What I've not experienced is any positive impact from talking to waitstaff, store clerks, bar tenders, valets, etc. I, like I'd assume most other people, do not get my human interaction from people I purchase services from. I get it from my family, friends, and coworkers.

Perhaps if I were proposing we move to a world where everyone lives in a box never interacting with another individual, you'd have more of a point. That said, my week is no better or worse as a result of moving to online banking or when I have groceries delivered.

I could concede that if the only form of human interaction someone experiences is from a restaurant wait staff then there'd be a net negative for that individual. However, getting food delivered or preparing food at home hardly seems like the problem you are painting. Nor does it seem like me being "out of touch with reality".

Perhaps another concession I'd give is that I could see how limiting human interaction would minimize opportunities for empathy. Certainly, I think more people would be empathetic to field hands were they to directly interact with them.

But, again, I don't see how that really translates when talking about food prep at a restaurant.

I give it about 3 months before these QR code menus start asking for your email "for deals" before they'll display the menu. And I'm sure some great new YC backed startup will be created to collect all the data and aggregate it with other data broker information.

> Like all things in life, when its implemented well it works

As does a physical menu.

I don't want to take my phone out when dining.

> I say this as a westerner but perhaps the west is not ready for it yet

This seems like an odd take. I'd be interested in tangible data, but I'd be inclined to believe that most tech-affluent people are probably OK with QR codes being the norm, in general. It saves money, paper, and isn't really a hard step for anyone with a phone. In general the west is pretty pro-tech.

> I'd be inclined to believe that most tech-affluent people are probably OK with QR codes being the norm, in general

Everyone I know, "tech-affluent" and tech-savvy alike, hate them. Next time you go out for a meal with a large group, ask for physical menus and gauge the reaction of those around you - likely that most of them will ask for one too.

> Like all things in life, when its implemented well it works

This is false. A QR-code based menu does not work for people that do not use a smartphone.

Already in the US, I'm seeing some restaurants where you pay right at the table as well.

In NYC, you can see this at World's Wurst [1] in SoHo.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/World's+Wurst/@40.7279645,...

This setup seems beneficial to both restaurant owners and customers in China. The faster ordering process saves time for servers, which reduces labor costs, and the savings can be passed on to customers.

But it cannot work in America because of the tipping culture.

> The benefits to me of not having physical menus is huge

But the negatives are also huge.

- My phone is slow, so it's painful to navigate the menu

- Half the restaurants have horrible UI for their menu

- You can't casually peruse the menu, you have to go item by item down the list.

At least to me, it's an awful experience.

The current state of tech is pretty horrible. The web is a terrible platform for how it is being used today. There is little to no innovation happening anymore, and everything driven purely by advertisements and user-hostile practices to increase revenue over usability. It's very difficult to not be pessimistic about tech.

I think this is more than just a difference in technology. The entire culture of restaurant dining is different in China. The greatest example of this is the fact that servers in China will always wait to approach the table until they are called over. This is quite different from the American approach in which the servers always come to us without being asked.

I suppose for me, going to a restaurant is not a matter of "efficiency". I go there to socialize with friends, to enjoy the atmosphere, to interact with people. If service is slow, then, yes, I get annoyed. However, I don't think I ever go into a restaurant thinking, "I wish they would make restaurant ordering more efficient." If I want that, I go to a fast food place or place that does takeout.

I don't think it is bad as an option, but I resent it as the only method.

* Homeless/poor may not have phones

* Old people don't have smartphones or know how to use them

* I don't want to have my phone with me at all times. I actually leave my phone in the car when dining sometimes.

* Something as simple as a listing of options, which is often static for weeks or more at a time, now depend on a WAN connection! It's meatspace dependency hell.

I know "menu costs" are such a thing that it is taught in accounting and business classes. Nevertheless, the idea of getting rid of a hard menu, even as a backup, is absurd, unnecessary, and dare I use a buzzword I hate, "privileged".

We went to a restaurant last week for the first time in a year, and sat there for 10 minutes waiting for a menu. The person who seated us didn’t tell us about the QR code. I discovered it after idly looking at the piece of paper on the table (which previously I assumed was an ad for drink specials).

A few minutes later I witnessed an elderly couple experiencing the same thing. They sat for 10 minutes expectantly waiting for menus to be delivered.

Lame experience.

I agree with the efficiency sentiment. Nothing worse than waiting on a waiter for what feels like hours at a restaurant when the chef could just be preparing my meal.

I would also be okay with an NFC approach or both NFC / QR code approach, NFC stickers are cheap and can do similar to QR codes.

I’ve had experiences ordering through a QR code in San Francisco which were even more seamless: pre-pay for your food with Apple Pay right off the website, tip included. Scan again if you want to order something else. Everyone at the table can order separately.

I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. It was like a custom web-DoorDash for one table with only one restaurant option. Probably someone could run with that and scale it up to a food court without much difficulty and a willing mall partner. Efficient, but if I gave a damn about the economics I would cook at home and this definitely removes some of the hospitality of the hospitality business.

> Like all things in life, when its implemented well it works and when it does not it is terrible.

for a good example of this look at the iPhone's predecessors and the iPad's predecessors... before those the PDAs were basically awful and internet phones were junk. the iPad basically created a wide-spread tablet market.

"The benefits to me of not having physical menus is huge."

Come now. Let's not get carried away.

You're saying it's okay to require the entire stack of technology of 50+ years of CS and hw/sw engineering to be able to order something at a restaurant at negligible benefit is something desirable?

Requiring an inordinate amount of technological sophistication/complexity for simple things is how to build vulnerable systems.

Sounds nice until your menus have pop-unders and you need adblock to order food.

I gotta say, I disagree with this piece. I, for one, love QR code menus. I can pinch zoom rather than squint at a menu with small/unreadable fonts in dim lighting. I don't need to badger the already exhausted wait staff on a busy night when they forget to drop us a menu or two. When orders are taken online, rather than awkwardly force a friend to not go to the bathroom (or take their kid to the bathroom) until a server can take their order, they can just order and then go. I do think restaurants should handle payment themselves and have the option for paper menus or menus posted on a wall if needed, but otherwise I'm a fan.

You’ve built a beautiful straw man that I’ve never seen in real life, rarely if ever have I encountered a menu with tiny font that is unreadable, I’ve never been to place that seated me and didn’t bring the menus at the same time. I’ve not experienced the bathroom thing either even in large parties, but it doesn’t sound awkward… if someone says they have to go to the bathroom they go, just tell the waiter this person will order a little later… or they call tell you what they want if they already know.

Just because you have good eyesight doesn’t mean everyone else does

If you have something that can read a QR code you also have something that can magnify text.

I dated a girl with poor eyesight, and absent a digital version her method was the phone flashlight and holding the menu very close to her face. So the physical version was workable, but a pinch to zoom is still more dignified.

Yes, that or taking photos of each page and then browsing them on the phone. Either way it's worse than a good phone menu.

Personally I'd rather have a paper menu, but digital ones can definitely be more accessible for low vision.

I say can because half of the digital ones are godawful UX disasters.

Oh certainly. Put the QR code on the paper menu.

Sure, and go back to having to reprint all the menus every time you want to change something or update prices, needing extras for when menus get destroyed, paying people to wipe menus down if you have them laminated, etc.

As much as I prefer paper menus, I don't think the restaurants that have switched are going to go back to it. Would have better luck pressuring them to have less shit electronic menus.

Paper menus on request seems like the obvious middle ground. Not defaulting to putting menus out reduces the scale of all those problems, while also not alienating customers who for whatever reason don't want to or cannot use the digital menu.

Definitely agreed. I still know a couple of people who don't have smartphones, and even with smartphones you might have a dead battery, a low battery that they don't want to waste on a menu, a busted camera, or for whatever other reason be better off with a piece of paper. Keeping a few real menus handy would be the best way to handle it.

Firstly, amoung my friends I have the worst eyesight, it’s not legally blind thank god, but genetically I got pretty unlucky, my dad is legally blind and my mom’s eyesight is only slightly better than mine. But guess what, someone 400 years ago invented a great device that helps alleviate 80% of the issues that come with poor eyesight and it’s great. Anyone with poor vision can wear glasses, specifically reading glasses can be had for about $5 from any drug store (in the US). Ruining the experience of restaurants to only slightly convenience a minuscule demographic (those who have poor eyesight but for some reason refuse to acknowledge it and acquire corrective lenses) is idiotic. Bec even then, as the author pointed out you’re excluding another demographic.

Offering both options has no significant downside, and improves accessibility of your restaurant. I don’t think most restaurants have a Braille version of their menu, but having a digital version with VoiceOver-like functionality gets you something similar.

Why do you assume he's built a straw man and not just had a different experience from you? Service levels vary across the planet. I used to live in Europe and restaurant service was always dreadfully slow, it could take ages to get the menu and order and pay, having a digital system in many of those restaurants would be fantastic

This isn't necessarily the case. If restaurant service in a region is slow as a rule, it's probably a matter of different priorities. There may well be less pressure for such a system to speed up the process of ordering, because a more relaxed system is seen as a good thing, and the system that gets implemented in practice might be worse (e.g. perhaps the staff don't like/trust the online order system and they will not even check it, or when they do check it they still confirm with you).

It is almost certainly better to address the actual problem (in this case: a disagreement about priorities and service speed) than to implement a technical measure that one party thinks will fix a problem that the other party considers a feature. By failing to actually address the problem, it could cause some people to feel threatened and result in other problems.

Ugh. Why can't we have both?

First of all it takes a shitton of steps to scan a QR code if you don't have WeChat. On a default Android device you have to click 7 or 8 times to get into the QR scanner thingy inside Google Lens. I carry a 2nd phone with WeChat and I can scan things in 0 seconds flat, but most people don't have it around here in the US.

And then many restaurants' QR menus just redirect you to their website with a terrible experience, and sometimes no pictures.

And then it's annoying as hell to try to read a phone screen in daylight outdoors.

If you can print a QR menu just print the damn menu also. Put the QR code on the menu cover for people who really want that.

These days I often just ask wait staff what they have because I don't want to look at my phone.

Normal camera app scans QR codes...

I have to swipe to the rightmost tab in normal camera app and then hit Google Lens and then hover over it while trying to top the tiny tooltip that pops up with my huge finger.

Horrible experience.

It should just open the web page with zero taps if I point at a QR code in ANY camera mode, even portrait or panorama or movie or whatever the last mode I was on. I shouldn't have to tell it "I'm going to scan a QR code", it should always be looking for one, because it's computationally very, very cheap.

On the iPhone, you literally just open the camera app, point it at the QR code, and a drop-down notification will prompt opening it in the browser. Thus, it is absolutely looking for one always as you describe.

Same on my OG Pixel.

And same on my mid-range 2020 Samsung. I think GGP is chasing windmills here...

The default camera app on both AOSP and iOS phones will scan QR codes, so it's really just a single step.

Yes, but you still need to click the link, open in the browser. I don’t trust the average restaurant to make correct security decisions on their online menu/payment system. So pass.

Most restaurants I’ve been to have their QR code link to a PDF and not an ordering website with payments.

That’s a worse user experience.

Than what? A printout of the same PDF? I mean if you prefer paper then yeah, I get it but it's such a small difference.

It’s much better. It’s easy for people to see even with visual impairments. Everyone sets up their phone to accommodate their own needs.

You can always take the time to ask for a menu and I’m sure someone will bring you one, but it’s my opinion that you’re making too big of a deal out of something that’s such a small part of the dining experience.

How does a pdf of a menu help a vision impaired person?

You mean a PDF hosted on a squarespace site? Or one of the many many apps that integrate with POS systems to do scan and pay?

> First of all it takes a shitton of steps to scan a QR code if you don't have WeChat Not really, on most real devices.

> On a default Android device you have to click 7 or 8 times to get into the QR scanner thingy inside Google Lens.

Perhaps, on stock Android with no manufacturer special apps. But the Samsung, Google, and LG Camera apps, at least, have “point at a QR code and the camera reads it”, so it takes as many clicks as opening the Camera app.

Hm, I have a Pixel 5 and it most certainly doesn't do that. Nothing happens.

https://i.imgur.com/kjFEwiR.jpg

Then again, starting about 5 weeks ago it also stopped responding to "OK Google" and 3 weeks ago it stopped announcing turn-by-turn directions during GPS navigation so I guess this is the state of tech in 2021 :-/

(Definitely don't want an Apple device though, massive privacy issue for me to use a closed source kernel and that I can't easily introspect and MITM SSL requests on to see what data is being sent about me, I do like Android for the fact that I can more or less much hook into any part of the OS and execute custom code to monitor what the hell apps are doing behind the curtain, and even give them fake-but-realistic sensor data to even further protect my privacy.)

How do you do MITM SSL when pretty much every secure app use key pinning.

Exactly, on iOS it's not easy, on Android it's far easier because the OS listens to you, not Apple or Google, and it's far easier to root Android than it is to jailbreak iOS, or run an open source fork like LineageOS and run the same apps on that.

You can (a) decompile the app, mod it, recompile it, sign it, and then execute it (b) modify the OS to not care about app signatures (c) bypass it with Xposed hooks, ... lots of ways.

I find hard to believe that you can decompile any app that has bothered implementing key pinning (which I always assumed is done at app level, not OS).

Speaking of https, I will give my own example. I can get to the cockpit (local ip:9090) of my fedora machine on my android phone if I continue past the scary warning but not on my iphone.

You can most definitely bypass the invalid certificate warning on iOS (I also have a device that uses a self-signed certificate and listens on a local IP, I can open its web interface just fine on iOS)

I can bypass the self-signed cert error on my iPhone 8 on iOS 14.4.2

That aside, what's the point? There's no practical threat model where https makes what you're doing more secure. If you have neither a domain name that can use a real TLS cert nor your own CA added to the mobile device, it would be trivial for someone to MITM you. Just configure your Fedora dashboard to use http if you don't care about security

I think you have this backwards? Its much easier to bypass cert pinning and MITM a local process on an Apple device. Disable SIP on Mac OS or jailbreak an iPhone (15 minutes on almost the latest iOS), ‘lldb attach’ and away you swizzle.

Pixel user here too. You have to enable "Google Lens suggestions" in the camera settings for it to read QR codes automatically.

Drop down menu > Camera Settings > Google Lens suggestions.

In addition on my pixel 3 you can open camera app and long press QR code. This works with or without enabling lens suggestions.

So, double press power button, long tap QR code, and click link to visit site.

I stopped trusting Google to put out bugfree products right around the time the Chromecast 2 came out.

It's been a downhill expectation on experience since.

Firefox Android can scan directly from the URL bar of a new tab.

You just blew my mind!

This made my day. I always love finding out about super-useful features I wasn't aware of in software I use every day. Thank you!

This must be a very personal experience as I recognize none of this and never heard this from anyone either. I think you just simply need a newer phone. I have a cheap Samsung and I live in a place where the sun is always on and usually no clouds, and yet I walk kilometers every day doing work on my phone. No issue reading anything. And like the others say: the camera app automatically and very robustly pics up qr codes when you wave it past it.

I like qr codes anyway: I don't like dead tree printing or touching stuff that is not mine but had a million hands on it (I had that before covid).

> I think you just simply need a newer phone.

“yeah I'll get right on that”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpQQohcHk9Q

I found the original: https://www.patreon.com/posts/just-buy-new-one-16961122

on iPhone it is a single gesture from a locked phone to scan the QR code

I also really love how many restuarants put a QR code on the receipt that opens Apple Pay

I am sure there are plenty of web-based alternative UI disasters to replace menus with fonts that are too small to read properly.

Wait, restaurants are making you order from an app too?? So now you don't really need your 'exhausted wait staff' so much. Hire less wait staff as a portion are now are underutilized. Now some wait staff have no jobs, and the remainder work the same exhausting shifts. The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard, with less service comes less tips. Now you have a whole industry of overworked AND underpaid staff.

Any efficiencies you are seeing will be refactored and stretched out as any business cannot afford to carry fat if they want maximum profit and competitive edge (price).

This whole inconvenience of a friend going to the bathroom is an incredibly weak argument for foregoing the tradition and ceremony of interacting with a person who will provide you with a meal. If you want to live in a McWorld where every step of your dining experience is as sterile, efficient, and touch free as possible then I am sad for you. That's not what a meal with friends and family means to me, it's not just about eating for sustenance.

Why do you draw the line at taking payment?

>The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard

The reason they get tips is because they are waitstaff, it has zero to do with how hard they work, it's simply custom to tip waitstaff, even lazy waitstaff.

Most employees work just as hard without getting tips (like the people who are actually cooking the food).

Maybe for you, I tip extra for working hard to keep my meal hot on delivery, water topped up, checking in at appropriate times. I honestly don't understand how you can say tips are not proportional to level of service and how level of service is entirely detached from working hard.

> Most people work just as hard without getting tips (like the people who are actually cooking thr food)

Most people get paid a real wage which isn't backfilled with charity from their customers.

At many good restaurants tips are distributed to the kitchen staff too. Obviously I have no control over that, and the world isn't fair either. None of this changes my argument.

> I tip extra for working hard to keep my meal hot on delivery, water topped up, checking in at appropriate times.

Those are things happen with good management, they have little to do with how hard an individual employee is working at a given time.

Besides the claim wasn't waitstaff gets "extra" tips for working hard, the claim was that waitstaff is tipped because they work hard. Don't move the goalposts.

>I honestly don't understand how you can say tips are not proportional to level of service and how level of service is entirely detached from working hard.

I tip the same if my service is shitty, I am not going to put an individual employee in a position of taking a pay cut when I can't know the exact reason something went wrong. I don't know enough about their operations to be punishing individual employees. Even if I could tell if it were an individual employee's fault, most places pool tips, so I'd be punishing the other employees working at the same time. So everyone gets the same tip from me.

I also simply just don't enjoy LARPing as a lord of my personal fiefdom.

Again, you get good service with good management, simple as that.

> waitstaff gets "extra" tips for working hard

All tips are 'extra' that's the whole concept. It's money on top of what I am obliged to pay.

> you get good service with good management

Good management would pay a good wage and negate the need for tipping.

> I also simply just don't enjoy LARPing as a lord of my personal fiefdom.

Low blow. You are implying that I am less than you because I have some kind of financial control over waitstaff that I enjoy. A rather bad faith position to be in given how pious and understanding you are striving to come across as.

> most places pool tips

So now you agree kitchen staff get tipped too

> I tip the same if my service is shitty

Good for you. I don't think many people operate like this, so I'd say you are an edge case.

> it has zero to do with how hard they work, it's simply custom to tip waitstaff, even lazy waitstaff

Again, this is how you operate. Wikipedia lays out the common perception of tipping

"The customary amount of a tip can be a specific range of monetary amounts or a certain percentage of the bill based on the perceived quality of the service given."

I've experienced living in the UK without tipping, and in N.America with tipping. All I can say is it's night and day. Very few make a career out of working as waitstaff in the UK, plenty of people have a career in the service industry in N.America. Working hard for large tips can give you a living wage. In the UK because everyone is treated the same, waitstaff do the minimum for the minimum wage (there are exceptions, of course) and then find a better job. Since I left the UK this has begun to change, it's now reasonably common to tip in nicer restaurants, and guess what? The service is better and the waitstaff I assume are happier with more money in their pockets for their effort.

I will admit that I gave a really shitty tip the other week. I ordered the salad bar. All she had to do was refill my pop and settle the bill. She dropped the check off and didn't come back for 15 minutes. I walked over to the bar area to find someone to run my card and she was bullshitting with another employee. Yeah, no. I make it a point to tip well and just consider that part of the cost of my food. Not this time. I rounded up to the next dollar and I don't know why I even did that.

Perhaps you are unaware, but in the US, tipped waitstaff only make $2.83/hr in most places (tipped minimum wage). These people need tips in order to make any money. Nobody is working hard for 2.83/hr.

This is changing since now people are refusing to work those jobs. And yes, the entire industry is dumb and corrupt for having this practice in the first place, but it is what it is.

> Perhaps you are unaware, but in the US, tipped waitstaff only make $2.83/hr in most places (tipped minimum wage).

Perhaps you are unaware, but:

(1) US federal tipped minimum cash wage is $2.13, not $2.83, but also

(2) Most US states and territories have a tipped minimum wage above the federal tipped minimum (and also, though by a smaller margin, most have a tipped minimum above $2.83, which is PA’s tipped minimum.)

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped

Sorry, you're right, a quick google search revealed my state's wage, not the fed (forgot to check the difference, which is so negligible that it's insulting).

This does not change my point in the slightest, which is that wait staff need tips to survive because the tipped minimum wage is unlivable basically everywhere.

> This does not change my point in the slightest, which is that wait staff need tips to survive because the tipped minimum wage is unlivable basically everywhere.

Its the same as the general minimum in several places, and at or above the federal general (not just tipped) minimum even more, so if its unlivable “basically everywhere” that's more than just a tipped minimum problem.

It's the same as the general minimum in only 7 states.

Yes, the general minimum wage is a problem too. But in 43 states the tipped minimum is a greater problem.

Maybe you are not aware, if the tip is not enough to match the non tipped minimum wage then the employer has to make up the difference.

In practice, tipped employees typically get 0 dollar paychecks from their employers; the business assumes that your tips bring you up to the minimum wage, whether true or not, and they pay taxes on your behalf accordingly. This is also typically calculated on a pay period basis, rather than by hour or by day, which results in overstaffing during slow periods to the detriment of all employees, because as long as you get up to the general minimum wage via tips (which is a paltry wage), the business still pays you peanuts.

Thats not true, tipped employees typically do get >0 dollar paycheck from their employers. That is their base hourly wage.

general minimum wage is peanuts, yes. but tipped waitstaff only make $2.83/hr is not true. If the employer did not make up the difference then they risk being fined/shutdown.

> Thats not true, tipped employees typically do get >0 dollar paycheck from their employers. That is their base hourly wage.

This is not true. I’ve been a service employee. Your employer withholds taxes on estimated tipped earnings, typically resulting in literal $0 paychecks. This is the norm in states with lower tipped minimums (might not hold true in states like CA). In fact, getting actual cash on your paycheck means the business was so slow that they needed to pay you to make up the difference (or close to it). In which case, barely over $7 is still abysmal to deal with the bs in that biz, and obviously far too little to actually live a decent life.

That's not true. I've been a service employee too. You typically get your hourly wage in the paycheck resulting in >$0 paycheck, even with tax withhold.

>In which case, barely over $7

Right, so tipped waitstaff only make $2.83/hr is not true.

> general minimum wage is peanuts, yes. but tipped waitstaff only make $2.83/hr is not true.

True, tipped minimum is $2.13/hr.

> If the employer did not make up the difference then they risk being fined/shutdown.

Employers make up reported shortfalls in tipped jobs, but they also often treat shortfalls as a negative performance indicator, justifying termination. In jobs where there are cash tips (not everything through a payment system), this incentivizes enployees to assure that there are no shortfalls.

>True, tipped minimum is $2.13/hr

Tipped minimum is 2.13/hr is true but tipped waitstaff only make 2.13/hour is not true.

Yeah, I find it very very sad. I am so isolated after 15 months of lockdowns that I literally go to a restaurant for a tiny bit of social interaction, just smalltalk with a waiter. Just about 4 out of 5 times they insist on ordering online. It gets me quite angry, I can just as well stay home if I have to look at the screens even more after looking at the screen the whole day.

Outside of high end restaurants, I'm not sure that I've ever once been provided with useful information by a server. "See if you can get our server's attention when they come by, we are ready to order/pay" is a fairly common occurrence, even at solid places.

Does this reduce the need for waitstaff at most places? Yes. Is that bad for waitstaff. Yes. Is that a reason to want a person to physically write down my order and type it into a machine in the back? Eh.

When I go out to eat with friends and family, the important part is spending time with friends and family (and sometimes strangers, but that’s usually other patrons). I don’t mind interacting with waitstaff, but it’s not adding any value to my experience, either - as long as I get my order I don’t really care about the tradition and ceremony, as you put it.

We went out recently to a place where we ordered with our phones and had a great time. It was simple and painless, orders were served quickly and it didn’t matter that the only thing I ever said to staff was ”thanks” - I focused on my people instead.

To each their own, but to me this ceremony provides zero value. Waiters take the order and may comment on the weather, it's not like we're developing a deep friendship here.

The "tradition" is to sit, wait for a waiter to appear. Ask for purpose (lunch? big meal? just a drink?). Then you wait again for the correct menu to appear. Then you get asked for a drink. And wait for the drink. And then comes the longer wait where the waiter tries to detect when you are ready to order, if they see it at all.

Combined, that's some 20-30 mins in and the prepping of your meal hasn't even started yet.

Now if you're the kind of person that's going to be in there 3-4 hours anyway, the ritual doesn't harm, but it doesn't add much value either. It's needlessly slow and inefficient.

Your future dystopian nightmare is already here, and it's fine. In the Netherlands, some sushi restaurants work as follow. You are seated. There's an iPad for everyone, and people just tap what they want. Some minutes later, your food arrives. This supposed cold-hearted efficiency means I get to spend more time engaging with my friends, the very point of the visit.

By the way, you're not doing restaurants any favors with a slow and long visit. It means they can't use your table twice. So finish your meal in 1.5-2 hours and if still not bored with your friends, go to a damn bar.

3-4 hours is a long time. That sounds like a leisurely dinner set on "Italian Mode" [no offence] with a reservation, not a work lunch on Tuesday in the US.

This ritual or ceremony of waiter, menu, waiting, ordering, signalling for the cheque that you apparently find vile... I enjoy it. Any inefficiency you have declared is part of the experience of going out to eat.

You want fast food? Go get fast food.

You want a butler and cook? Hire them.

You want to go out to dinner? Here's a waitress, menu, and some time for walking back and forth between their station and your table and their other tables in their zone.

All of this is, or at least should be, factored in to the restaurant's business. It's been 100 years, at least in the US. If they don't get it by now, at least you should.

Then you should continue patronizing restaurants that have the traditional method, and whoever doesn't want that can seek out restaurants with more efficient methods. Forcing your definition of what a restaurant "should be" is detrimental to everyone, more choice is better for everyone.

It didn't say any of those steps are vile. I said that in my opinion, they are needless steps that don't add value to guests or the restaurant itself.

A restaurant wants to know your order. Why does this simple thing take 20-30 mins? Whom benefits? How does it enrich your experience exactly, this useless waiting and pointing at a menu?

"Wait, restaurants are making you order from an app too?? So now you don't really need your 'exhausted wait staff' so much. Hire less wait staff as a portion are now are underutilized. Now some wait staff have no jobs, and the remainder work the same exhausting shifts. "

Not around here, no. Was out eating yesterday. That place we went to has the exact same number of wait staff as before QR codes, the difference is only that they're not exhausted, they are not stressed when interacting with us (showing us the table, bringing food, checking in on us if we need something else, etc). We don't have to wait for them to get the bill or to pay. The overall atmosphere is much more relaxed now. And yes the other places I visit also keep the same number of staff as before, as far as I can tell.

> Now some wait staff have no jobs, and the remainder work the same exhausting shifts.

This is a lot to unpack. I'm always surprised by people in the tech industry, where we seek to automate so much to make things better... be against innovation?

If a QR menu can tangibly provide a similar or better experience, for less cost, then it is objectively a better value for everyone involved. We shouldn't keep manual jobs around "just because." If that was a valid mindset, then we should get rid of all cars and have large caravans of people to trade across the country to ensure more people have jobs.

In this case, the question becomes "does the QR code provide a similar, or better, experience?" Only time will tell - but if it does, overall, then it will replace the wait staff, and this is a good thing.

This is why discussions of UBI take place, because we shouldn't intentionally do things less efficiently just to save jobs.

> The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard, with less service comes less tips. Now you have a whole industry of overworked AND underpaid staff.

I don't disagree here, but tip culture is an absurd concept and I wish it would die in America. Just bake it into the price of the menu, and pay workers better.

For me it's an automatic yes as long as the restaurant has wifi that is easy to access. Mostly because I get to avoid germs from all the previous hands who held the menu. Most people's hands are far more germy than a toilet seat if they haven't been recently washed.

I have one interesting observation about one part of what you said: I wouldn't say that tips will go down. If anything, COVID has shown us that tips actually go up the less service that we get.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tipping-for-online-orders-becam...

> Now you have a whole industry of overworked AND underpaid staff.

There is a ton of abuse in the food service industry in America, not the least of which is paying servers less than 3 bucks per hour, and thats one of the cushier jobs. I was a server a long time, and sometimes you make the money in tips, sometimes you don't. I knew a lot of servers who put up with workplace abuse because of the illusion of easy cash the job creates. BOH staff work harder and usually take home even less.

Ordering from an app is great. No mistakes, no forgotten orders, and nobody abusing the machine.

Trust me, the wait staff doesn’t appreciate your “ceremony.”

Also, you can do a text search.

It's really simple: if I can't read your menu, I'm not eating. Goodbye. IIRC there's a law here that mandates a menu visible from outside the premises, it isn't always followed to the letter, but but most places comply, and it's a great way to avoid unpleasant pricing surprises.

Same with paying. You don't accept cash or credit cards? Goodbye. You only accept apple pay or some other nonsense payment system? Goodbye. And you'd better advertise your accepted payment methods outside if you want to avoid unpleasant surprises.

There are plenty of restaurants/bars out there. I'm not spending money in any place that clearly doesn't want me there.

And if you really insist on a silly QR menu, then at least include a human readable version of the URL. Seriously. It's not that hard.

> And if you really insist on a silly QR menu, then at least include a human readable version of the URL. Seriously. It's not that hard.

OK, here is the URL: > http://customer0931.incompetentagency.com/?location=2k12kx&i...

Have fun :)

I would argue that doesn't quite qualify as human readable ... Surely something like https://restaurant.tld/menu would make more sense ...

After 20 years of web, I still see commercially printed URLs on signs/buildings/cars/etc that do not understand redirects.

I saw http://www.ourcompany.com/sub/registration.aspx on printed on a glass door the other day - looked like etching at first, but may have something else? This was at a local theater/event space, IIRC.

"ourcompany.com/register" is infinitely more understandable, and unsure why no one in the chain of command for that decision didn't press for something simpler. But they often don't (still). I remember seeing an email printed on a service truck back... 2002? 2003? "Email us as www.myservicename@yahoo.com". I never tried it - perhaps they actually had that email, but I suspect people were still in the habit of saying "www dot" before anything that had to do with "internet".

There are a bunch of trucks outside my house at the moment laying fiber cabling. The email address for the company is basically 'buildingcompany.co.uk@gmail.com' and this isn't a tiny firm.

It left me wondering whether the bosses if the company just don't care or if they were told by the web design company they hired for their site that it'd add thousands to the website cost and decided against it.

It makes no difference to the box-checkers hiring them, so therefore,

I think most people will just Google the URL and (usually) get the correct address as the first result. This might even be an intentional (if misguided) SEO strategy.

Of course this is not useful or really human readable. It was meant as a "Be careful what you ask for" to the parent post and refers to the fact that at least in my part of the world, most restaurants are not part of a big chain and often end up with digital service/ad agencies of very dubious quality where this kind of URL would be completely acceptable both for the business owner and the agency because both just don't know any better.

> You don't accept cash or credit cards? Goodbye.

Where did you encounter such a restaurant?

I'd estimate that 99.9% of restaurants accept credit in the US based on the anecdote that I've only had to pay 1 restaurant in cash over the last decade.

How would a restaurant refuse both credit and cash? Do they make you pay before eating?

> How would a restaurant refuse both credit and cash?

Might have been at a Czech place. ;)

these are everywhere in China now. They use WeChat pay or Alipay :)

I haven't been there in almost 3 years so it must have gotten a lot worse now, I doubt I can survive next time I visit.

Plenty of guides on registering burners for this app, no?

how am I suppose to have a burner bank account to use with it? don't forget mobile number are associated with your identity in China

> associated with your identity in China

Isn’t this true everywhere, just not effectively enforced?

You are generally supposed to provide ID and a street address to the phone company when your number is activated. Some places treat that as just a formality and will take any number and address in the right format, but at least in the EU it’s the law and they have to “require” it.

Are straight-up burner phones a la “The Wire” still a thing in the US?

> Are straight-up burner phones a la “The Wire” still a thing in the US?

Of course. Why would you have to provide an ID to buy a prepaid SIM card?

Quite a few places went to online-only payment during the pandemic. And while you can pay online with a credit card, you can’t actually pay by presenting the physical card at point of sale - which is argue counts as “not accepting credit cards” for a significant minority of the population (those without smartphones, primarily)

I don't have any of this stuff set up on my phone either, and I don't tend to have my credit card with me at all times either. So even with a phone I wouldn't be able to pay.

The basic principle that you should be able to go out and participate in society without an Apple or Google smartphone should be heralded as common sense.

(Feel free to put up a URL and a QR code for the menu online in addition to paper menus though.)

Push notifications should be a public utility, or standardized at least. I can't believe how much we depend on them, despite them being served only by their one corresponding company.

How do you depend so much on push notifications? If you are receiving so many you may want to adjust your settings. It is not good for your mental health nor your productivity to be constantly distracted by notifications on a phone

I don't depend on them but banking apps do, for one, and I'd hate to arrive to a world where the communication channels are all proprietary. In my opinion, protocols should be open, services should be interchangeable. And so push notifications, as a they are means of communication, should be provided as a service so that you could choose providers and such.

I'm not sure I have push notifications turned on for any of my banking apps.

I do get notifications from my banks through text and email.

Where I live, refusing to load a menu from a QR code would drastically reduce your options to eat out during the pandemic. Yes there are plenty of restaurants, but 95% of them now use a QR code that links to the menu (usually a PDF).

You're free to leave, but you'll cook at home.

QR codes are no good if cell service is spotty with certain carriers. Recently at a distant restaurant, I scanned the QR, waited for it to time out, discover there was no cell service, find the free wifi, enable my VPN, connect to the restaurants wifi, wait for authentication, then open camera app and scan QR again, wait for the kindle app to open the PDF, only to be handed a paper menu a few seconds later...

I know how a menu works. I read the food, see the price, and order. Personally I want to relax at a restaurant and not troubleshoot for myself and others, all while increasing my stress levels.

One way to fix this might be to encode the full text of the menu within the QR code, instead of a link?

QR codes are handy for easing people into eating out again... but wow; it can be pretty frustrating. Something I find myself thinking about more, is how Technology really needs to be more reliable, and how we really need to consider all the edge cases, before we can begin to replace the simple items such as a menu, let along more complex systems....Rant: I want something that will work 100% of the time.

Why not just setup wifi hotspot, make the captive page the menu.

Usually the restaurant hasn’t made their own site but is paying some menus-as-a-service company to handle it for them.

E.g. https://www.meandu.com.au/

Why not hand out regular menus instead of using unnecessary technology?

Because the digital menu is cheaper. A lot cheaper. You don't have to reprint when you alter it, you can automatically move people to the right menu based on the date/time.

The data limits for a QR code are rather small. Note the storage is also used by ECC payload, which generally isn't optional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Storage

The menu is probably going to insist on using lower case letters, and the "Binary/byte" encoding will be interpreted as something between 7-bit ASCII and UTF-8 depending on the client. With the ECC payload 2,953 bytes sounds like quite a lot, THEN you look at the giant art linked in the article for even small examples. The size (version) 40 takes 177×177 width of decodable, clearly visible pixels.

At that point the QR code is in the ballpark of a printed 8.5x11 or A4 sheet of paper, and is far less useful to humans than a laser printed page with multiple sizes of lettering, super high contrast, and no requirement for a computer to decode.

Haha, yeah... I'm not sure how important it is to have ECC to menu text.. good info.

They are also no good if you don't bring your phone with you. I generally leave my phone at home unless I expect to have to make a call or something. If the restaurant doesn't have a paper copy somewhere, I'll just leave and go find another restaurant. There are tons of restaurants, and I'm happy to vote with my wallet on this one.

This exactly :)

The worst thing about QR code menus is that they're often just a paper-sized PDF that you have to pinch and zoom around. If they could design QR code menus like responsive mobile sites inspired by food-ordering apps this wouldn't be an issue, they'd be even better than paper menus.

When I was in China I enjoyed using their mobile menus. A common layout I saw was a narrow vertical bar on the left with categories(appetizers, main, drinks, etc) and cards with photos + details on the right.

https://www.smartshanghai.com/uploads/articles/2019/06/63615...

That design language makes sense with Chinese because it's dense. I'm not sure it would work with any language written in Roman script. Uber Eats for example uses a single vertical scrolling menu with horizontal separators and tab bars top and bottom.

That looks quite distopian

Every pandemic ordering system I've used has been a proper app or website. Surely you have to have that in order to actually enter your order? You can't click "buy" on a PDF.

Most bars/restaurants I've been to have menus but no ordering system, you order and pay as before.

Must be regional. Are you in America? Maybe because card payment is less common?

In France. Payment by cash is very rare, most everything is paid by contactless. But I think it's more of a habit that in restaurants and bars, you usually pay when leaving.

This comment and the one below it, also about China[1], should be higher up. It was very convenient to be in a restaurant and have a digital menu in a standardized format. Of course, it required a number of factors to align: all interactions were through one of two apps (WeChat or Alipay), the menu layout was standard, font size was not tiny (no zooming necessary), cell and/or wifi coverage was not lacking. There was also a choice between having a menu portal and just a payment portal. Street food vendors usually had a laminated QR code tacked to their cart and you could scan and pay without the vendor needing to ever handle cash, which made for a more efficient processing of the line.

It certainly wasn't a perfect system, but it was a lot better than the US, where restaurants have multiple different menu layouts, some are PDF, some let you pay via mobile, etc. The lack of relative uniformity makes for some positive but many negative user experiences.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27671788

As a counterpoint, QR code menus work very well in China. I've been to places where you scan the code to open a menu that lets you place all your orders. You can also pay for your table via per table QR codes.

As a side note, you don't customarily tip in restaurants in China, so a non high-end place with good food will typically have rushed and curt wait staff. Ordering through the phone will give you a better experience!

If only we could upload the food more efficiently. Then we wouldn't need restaurants at all.

every restaurant and bar I've been to in Brooklyn in the last week now also has the menu, ordering, and payment entirely through the QR codes. most using the Toast platform. I don't see this trend going back the other way.

It would be lovely if we could move closer to the Chinese consumer model re: QR codes in general. Wechat pay/Alipay are incredibly convenient.

I find paying via QR code to be much less convenient than NFC that is more popular in the west. Tap and pay is really quick, especially in countries like Australia.

With "App Clips" or "Instant Apps" or whatever you want to call them QR codes for me take the lead again. Get a receipt at the table, open camera, scan, app pops up with receipt, add tip, click click pay, done.

Skipping the second waiter trip to swipe all the cards or the awkwardness of bringing out the PoS system to the table is immediately worth it to me.

Ya, I get that. Red Robin has screens/computers/payment kiosks at each table to avoid that problem. They won't use QR codes at sit down restaurants in the states for payments because of tipping, however. Psychologically, you are more likely to tip more if the waiter is directly involved in the billing.

Hm, maybe.

But can they afford to have an NFC reader at every single table?

Can street vendors without access to electricity/mobile connection just hold up a QR code cut into some wood and you can pay that way?

NFC seems to put the onus on the vendor, Wechat pay/Alipay has no such problem.

It's definitely not quick in the US, where it hasn't been really adopted at the same level, it might be fast in Australia.

Different culture. You pay at one place, no or few street vendors, modern convenience stores abound.

I've seen and used NFC pads attached to cellphones using Square adapters, so you can go that route if you want.

NFC is definitely much faster in Australia than in the USA.

Unlocking your phone, opening an app, possibly unlocking that one, tapping to scan, and then accept is NOT more convenient than NFC in your card. Unless your talking about costs.

For private free money transfer, the US and many other places have similar if not better methods.

Or NFC in your phone. I can't imagine it being more convenient than that.

NFC on my watch is in fact more convenient than NFC on my phone.

The difference is slight, but real.

Is there a good smart watch that's not an iWatch?

Not yet.

Google dropped the ball on wearable tech. Apples slow but steady increase of features has made it hard for competitors to catch up.

If NFC isn't common in your area and you really want to do watch payments, you can do Samsung Pay on any terminal with a magstrip reader, which is all of them.

You have to use watch then, and having something on my hand is not convenient (or, maybe, pleasant) for me.

How is NFC on a phone more convenient than tapping a card?

The phone would be already out whereas the card is more likely in a wallet. The phone is probably faster than getting the card.

Okay so if your phone is your hand already and ready to be used, then it's "more convenient" (i.e. saves maybe 2 seconds) than your card, but then in all other cases it's not? I usually keep my phone in my pocket so this isn't more convenient anyway.

Personally I find any hard requirement of a phone extremely _inconvenient_, since it means I must have my phone with me. A card/cash takes up much less space than a phone.

On the other hand, here in the UK I know several people who no longer carry a wallet or cards at all because Apple Pay is so ubiquitously available. I don’t know anyone without a phone.

I do have a phone and usually have it with me, but I don't always have it with me. I think having more payment options is great. Cash, cards, phones, you name it. The variety of options is true convenience. But I don't see how someone can say a phone is more convenient than cash/card for payment. Sure if you already have it with you (an argument which is symmetric anyway), but cash/cards use up less space and...well make payments.

I think the 2 are similar enough that are a bit subjective. For me it’s easier to pull out my card holder and slide out my card than trying to unlock my phone several times in a row. It doesn’t help that some places don’t know how to use NFC so the card works 100% of the time for me.

If I lived in a post-facemask NFC-aware country I’d totally use Apple Pay

The problem is that you have to have an NFC reader that they bring to you or that is at every table (if you are, say, in a restaurant).

By contrast, QR codes are cheap to manufacture, so you can put it on every table and anyone anywhere can pay without having to go to the counter or whatever.

Plus, NFC doesn't work over distance. Nor is it bidirectional.

I think there is something about QR that helps it gain critical mass over NFC, I have not seen anywhere penetrated as heavily by NFC as the QR codes are in China. Alipay QR codes are showing up in DC & SF too now.

I'm curious if those commenting have been to China/used the QR code system, I was likewise very skeptical before visiting.

It depends. For who smartphone addict and whom cards are in a wallet in a bag, launching barcode payment is faster than taking a card. Maybe NFC on smartphone is faster.

Indeed on NFC on my phone would be faster if I didn’t have to unlock it with a PIN code due to Face ID and my mask. I miss Touch ID-based Apple Pay.

my wallet is physically adhered to my phone, so consider slimming down as well

I still like not having to wait for the wait staff and just paying with QR code

>so a non high-end place with good food will typically have rushed and curt wait staff. Ordering through the phone will give you a better experience!

Not sure why that’s something we want to encourage.

Talk about low value comments.

Why not?

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not actually better for some people and some situations.

This is obviously a decent use case for QR code’s; your comments seem just like you don’t like it, and you’re not interested in even considering any other option.

I’m assuming that the GP is an American used to American standards of being waited on (where the staff are incentivized by tips and thus have to impress their customers), and so does not want ”rushed and curt” service to be encouraged (which would diminish their experience), rather than them having an aversion to QR codes per se.

Because encouraging people to be rude to each other is distasteful, I thought it was obvious.

Similarly, calling someone a “low value comment” and then taking the least charitable view of their comment is directly against hn community guidelines.

Unless you are a visiting foreigner without cell phone service and the WiFi requires you to login with a working cell phone number, then you are in 没办法 territory.

As an overseas Chinese visiting China, the cashier always look at me weirdly when I told them (in Chinese) I don't have online wallet/mobile internet. They think I'm taking them for a laugh.

Somehow I think that a visiting foreigner that can read Chinese to order off a paper menu is probably also going to have a working phone number in China. Someone that can't read Chinese and needs to use their phone for google translate is probably not going to be able to order off a paper menu either.

You’d be surprised how many overseas Chinese (who have immigrated to somewhere else) who are visiting China are trapped by this. And even foreigners who don’t read Chinese can pick out certain characters of the food they like to eat (you don’t need to read Chinese very well to recognize stereotypical 宫保鸡丁).

China is really bad at exceptions. Many of those restaurants have gotten rid of their paper menus (which didn’t have English anyways, so they aren’t worried about foreigners). It’s like the train station kiosks that can’t deal with you if you don’t have a Chinese ID card.

Yes, it is helpful to have cell service, both in China and in the United States.

You can get by without cell phone service in the USA. On all my business trips back to the USA while living in China, I didn't have much a problem (free open wifi is pretty common, you can even use Uber pretty easily without a phone number).

In China...if someone else can get you a SIM, you'll be OK, or maybe you can get one at the airport in customs (that used to be possible), though they have been cracking down on SIMs without ID numbers or resident visas associated with them.

> they have been cracking down on SIMs without ID numbers or resident visas associated with them.

?? I use Google Fi which has agreements with providers in almost every country, I had data as soon as I walked off the plane in China. Alipay was almost as easy to set up, although I understand that until recently it was limited to those with a Chinese bank account.

> I use Google Fi which gives has agreements with providers in almost every country, I had data as soon as I walked off the plane in China

That sounds really nice...and a bit surprising considering nothing else Google works in China without a VPN.

So...does it also work as a normal phone with a Chinese number so you can logon to wifi at Starbucks in China?

> a bit surprising considering nothing else Google works in China without a VPN.

It is a bit surprising, although Google does have offices in China. It also has a VPN built in, which I recall would intermittently bypass the GFW.

> So...does it also work as a normal phone with a Chinese number so you can logon to wifi at Starbucks in China?

No, I don't think so, but I had unlimited data.

Were you in Guangzhou by any chance? They weird connections for foreigners that bypass the firewall, things that don’t exist in Beijing or Shanghai.

No, I was in Beijing, Kunming, and Shanghai. But I honestly don't recall the specifics of the firewall bypass - I was using Outline (another Google sponsored project, funnily enough) to skip it most of the time anyways.

Also because WeChat scans QR codes very fast, and you have to only hit 1 tap to do the whole thing. Once WeChat sees a QR it opens the link immediately and automatically.

The ordering also makes it more useful. Most restaurants in US just have a horrible HTML 1.0 menu with no ordering system, no pictures, and sometimes even goddamn frames.

With default Android it's like Home -> swipe -> camera -> 模式 -> 智慧鏡頭 and then point at the QR code while trying to tap the link that pops up as a tiny tooltip on the screen at the same time without making it go out of focus at the same time. It's awful.

I don't have stock Android on my phone so this may be a feature my manufacturer has added, but I'm pretty sure you can press the shutter button instead of clicking on the popup to open the QR code.

Also, as others have pointed out, with Firefox you can scan and open a QR core in two taps, so no need to go to the camera app at all.

Same experience scattered across US as well, aside from compulsory tipping and added sympathy for service industry working - different conversation

but I do love paying with Apple Pay, I always hated how wait staff doesn't carry around Point of Sale systems in the US and that it takes multiple steps to 1) wait to get their attention again to get the bill 2) wait to get their attention again to pay for the bill 3) wait for them to return with your payment method and hope they don't get sidetracked. Now its down to just 1) in places with QR codes on receipts.

> Before the pandemic, I’d shudder at the sight of a restaurant table full of people all staring at their phones. I was always happy not to be them or be sitting with them. I always kept the lively conversation flowing at my table.

I always thought this perspective was funny because it always assumed what the people on their phones were doing. The assumption is that they are disengaged with each other when it's just as likely that they are talking with each other in a group chat alongside a few other non-present participants in the same group chat, and all trying to share photos with each other that they just took from the outting beforehand, or setting up a way to split costs in advance, or something else equally or more interactive than a conversation you can eavesdrop on.

Usually it's just shitty UX slowing them down.

> it's just as likely that they are talking with each other in a group chat alongside a few other non-present participants in the same group chat

To me, that's just as bad. Spend time with the people you're with while you're with them. Text the others later. But different strokes!

Okay then, it is just as likely they are only talking with each other in a group chat made specifically for sharing media and coordination, and not any non-present participants.

Sitting down at some kind of place to eat is remarkably one of the only places where there is organic down time to synchronize media.

I do have enough self awareness to joke with my friends that out of touch people think we are probably just disengaged with each other on our phones.

I mean, if that’s how you and your friends want to hang. I don’t like that experience and choose to go to restaurants with people I’d like to eat with and talk to in person. For me, pulling out the phone at dinner is rude. Whatever it is can wait the until after dinner.

It's happened before. Its not usually relevant when we only showed up to eat. Its usually relevant after a days worth of activities with media that was meant to be shared, and then the day eventually included eating.

The only point is that you don't know what others are actually doing and it doesn't matter what the explanation is.

Even amongst this crowd, disengaging with someone at dinner is rude. The device used to disengage has little to do with that.

I’m saying I don’t care what others are doing. If the restaurant wants people on their phones I’ll go somewhere else. If there’s a party that chooses to be on their phones that’s fine. I just won’t be using my phone or eating on the company of others on their phone.

It’s only rude if it isn’t expected. If reading the menu requires a phone, having your phone out is expected and not rude. If needing to take out your phone at the beginning of dinner is enough to distract your friends throughout the rest of the meal, perhaps there are larger problems than how you order food.

When I eat with people we use our phones to order and then put them away when they’re no longer necessary. It doesn’t change the dining experience at all and people still talk to each other.

Same crap no matter what... can't believe I am feeling old school for actually wanting to interact with people eye to eye when meeting them. Luckily all our friends have same approach, so we either don't have phones with us at all (because why really), or somewhere in deep pocket and untouched for whole evening. Refreshing feeling, one should try it from time to time

you're only "old school" because you can't imagine the reasoning or are projecting what you would do with a phone and are avoiding. you are imagining that everyone else just showed up at that point and disengaged. could be the case, could not be, you can't distinguish and it isn't your role to. Healthier to assume they aren't disengaged, if you must assume anything.

other reasons I would have my phone with me would be for the uber/shared ride to and from the location, to potentially pay for the meal or incidentals, to potentially take photos, to share my location with someone looking for me usually in that group that hasn't arrived yet, or continue sharing my location to people I always do. I hear this last part is taboo, but maybe even text message someone.

It always irritated me because it's incredibly condescending (the author's view, not yours).

Since we both work from home, my fiancée and I spend the vast majority of our day together. Sometimes everything we have to talk about has already been talked about during the day, and we just want to relax over some nice food. There's nothing wrong with us reading stuff on our phones while we wait for the meal to arrive.

The modern "consensus" seems to be that at such events, many if not most people do leave their phone in their pocket for a good first hour or so. So a basic awareness still exists.

Then comes the predictable ice breaker event. Somebody, as part of their conversation, needs their phone to show you something. The car they want to buy. Looking up a fact to settle your argument.

The first phone comes out, starting the phone avalanche. Everybody knows its ok now, and check their messages or whatever. The seal is broken.

The addiction is so widespread that we're still at full denial stage at society level.

Because the true reason almost everybody is itchy to pull out that phone is so bitter that it cannot be said out loud, but I will:

Whatever is on that phone, you find more interesting than your friends. And quite likely, because it really is more interesting. Because your phone can do anything and is full of surprises, yet your friend is not.

Downvote me, the truth hurts.

> Downvote me, the truth hurts.

I don’t think anyone cares enough actually

We aren’t triggered by this possible reality

There are limits to the etiquette and whats considered rude but it has shifted

Its the level of engagement, not the presence of the device itself

I‘m visually impaired and QR code menus have been a real boon to me. I‘m gonna be using my phone camera to read the menu either way, It‘s great when I don‘t have to keep the autofocus steady and illuminate half of a dark restaurant with the LED light.

Previously I would often try to find the menu on the website instead, but the QR codes are way more convenient. A direct link to the menu on the google maps listing is also pretty good.

Most importantly it has normalized my previously "weird" behaviour socially.

First: I am from germany, so, my perspective may differ from other parts of the world... and due to the pandemic, my last meal eaten in an restaurant was in the early beginnig of 2020. But i really never, never encountered a menu via QR Code... why would anyone want this?! If you are going to eat out, then it is (at least with the people i know) considered ab-so-lu-tely rude to even get your phone out (unless you are an doctor on call), using it would be a totally no-go. So... this is something i am really glad that it has not washed at our shores... at least not yet.

> it is (at least with the people i know) considered ab-so-lu-tely rude to even get your phone out

Whereas with people I know, it's not because / people have kids|partners they check in with / people sometimes just don't have the energy for constant peopling and the phone is a brief respite / people are sysadmins|on-call and get occasional blip warnings / people are checking on something to answer a question / etc.

I totally agree with you and your friends, but we're losing this fight. Which I find sad...

The good thing is: Even IF this trend carries on, there will always be the niche of the restaurants / cafes with big "no mobile phones allowed" stickers on the door (i know at least a couple of these even now...).

> First: I am from germany, so, my perspective may differ from other parts of the world... and due to the pandemic, my last meal eaten in an restaurant was in the early beginnig of 2020

> So... this is something i am really glad that it has not washed at our shores... at least not yet

How can you know if you haven't eaten in a restaurant since early 2020? Here in France, i had absolutely never seen it before the pandemic, but now it's ubiquitous even if roughly half the places also have a paper menu they can give/give anyways.

I'm from France and I have never seen that, but well there are "restaurants" and restaurants I guess.

Where do you live? In the Paris area it's hard to find a restaurant without a QR code on their tables.

Trips in the last year to various cities left me with the impression that QR codes are pretty ubiquitous in most restaurants fancier than your corner kebab shop but below La Tour d'Argent and co.

I live near Paris, but I admit did not go in many restaurants since they have reopened. I was under the impression that QR code only existed in restaurant chains, not in the regular restaurants. I have a hard time to see how the huge range of good restaurants where the menu is on a slate that change everyday and the waiter explain each item to you would use QR code, but I may be wrong.

Those that only do a daily menu on a slate still do so; some of those that used to do a ~daily menu with a printed sheet of paper either continue to do so or have a QR code to a regularly updated site. Those that did a mix ( fixed menu with daily options) often have the slate with daily options and a QR code for the basics.

I see, it's surprising and I stand corrected then.

Here in Braunschweig (a smaller city) a lot of restaurants are using QR Code based menus. So I would assume you simply haven't been eating out.

Sigh and there my hopes are going out the window...

So... now i have to select even more where i go when i am (finally) vaccinated next month...

Here in Iceland they've popped up primarily for outdoor seated areas. Presumably so the wait staff don't have to keep an eye outside and inside particularly as the outside seating tends to be more densely packed. There seems to be a pretty standardized web app as well which lets you order and pay in the app and then your food and drinks just magically appear.

That said the last time we used it was a bit of a fiasco as the web app was out of date with the actual menu. So we ordered and paid then the waiter had to come out and swap a bunch of stuff around. I have no idea why they didn't just take the QR codes down until they fixed things but there you go.

As an American that visits Germany, I absolutely hate how eating at a restaurant is seen by many as an event where you hang out forever, as opposed to a routine service I expect as a fairly quick and formulaic pitstop between other obligations. There seems to be no difference between classes of dining out, in this regard.

I also suspect you are out of touch. QR code menus and payments were not a thing in the US before the beginning of 2020 either. It was a very quick adaptation because the infrastructure was already there.

As i mentioned: No dining out after March 2020... but this will change next month (finally).

Your observation is correct: Many germans like to stay in an restaurant es an event, not just to eat something quick ... for this purpose there are tons of Pommesbuden, bakerys or Dönerläden.

Although I do hate it when aspects of Germany become more like America, I do wish that sit down nice restaurants had wait staff that checked on us a little more frequently with the expectation that maybe we want to leave!

I've had an OK experience with just demanding the bill when your table's last plates are being taken away.

As an American sitting in Germany right now, I think that wait staff here aren't bothered if you try to actively get their attention like they might be in the USA. Making eye contact or a polite wave, etc. Feels rude based on US service, but I see people doing that more often here.

The best thing in most restaurants is - as soon as the waiter is something near you - just say "I would like to pay the bill", or in german "Ich würde gerne zahlen".

The not 'checking on you' is the whole point we prefer about our 'system'. Just call them if you need something and otherwise they let you enjoy your time without permanent nagging or time pressure

I actually find this super irritating in American restaurants. Just let us enjoy our meal in peace...

Yeah there is a happy medium that alot of wait staff gets wrong here in the states

> No dining out after March 2020... but this will change next month (finally).

Is that something that very much depends on the region, or a personal obligation? I've eaten in restaurants in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich during pandemic (summertime last year until about November, and since June this year). Eating this year has been limited to outdoors, but that's fine.

(None have had this crazy QR code link menu idea. I have always received a traditional menu and ordered by asking the staff what I want at the appropriate time.)

>Is that something that very much depends on the region, or a personal obligation?

Its a personal obligation: My wife and i, we life in the same building as my older parents (in a big old half-timbered farmhouse)... so, until now (both parents are vaccinated, my wife got her second shot yesterday and i will get it soon) we were careful...

Ah, wow, glad you were able to finally get it

If you think it's weird to linger over food, take a meal as an event, rather than just a quick supercharger pit stop for the body - did you encounter the kind of restaurant where you're expected to sit at a table with random strangers? Party of three, there's room for three more, what's the problem? I've been to one where the side dishes were simply put in bowls on the center of the table and you helped yourself as needed.

I'd lived in North America for a long time by then (left Germany when I was 13) and initially this seemed a bit strange, but you get used to it. Eating as a social occasion where you might even meet interesting people.

All before COVID of course.

> I absolutely hate how eating at a restaurant is seen by many as an event where you hang out forever, as opposed to a routine service I expect as a fairly quick and formulaic pitstop between other obligations.

Cultural difference. If you don't want to spend time with your friends then don't accept invitations of going to a restaurant.

What if I want to socialize with people before, during, and after we eat...just for 20 minutes, though, not an hour plus?

It is a cultural difference, but it's fairly clear it wasn't always enjoyed. People in some parts of Europe really appreciated fast food places when they first started appearing, as it gave them an option that cut out much of the restaurant meal time expenditure.

Nope, I’m going to enjoy the cuisine experience with friends or solo and still want to get out of there in a timely manner. It’s not the only thing I am going to do that morning, afternoon, or evening.

It’s either because of Covid to reduce handling of shared menus or it’s because the place has a full ordering system and is streamlined to be as efficient and with minimal staff interaction as possible.

I can tell you there are plenty of those in NRW now, but they usually bring a paper version if you ask them.

where in germany are you? in HH it's about 50/50 these days on paper vs QR menus.

I had never seen it in the US either before the pandemic.

The worst aspect of QR codes as menu replacements is that they are a huge security risk. Who’s to say that QR code is legit? You can’t tell from looking at it. The trouble is compounded by the common practice of restaurants using some third-party service hosted off-site. The domain is no longer a trust signal either. It’s only a matter of time before someone starts snarfing information or credit card numbers this way (scan here to pay your bill).

Most of the places I've been to just put their menu on a website linked through QR code, but still take orders and payment through staff. I've been to one place that doesn't do this but only one.

But if a malicious QR code led to a website that asked diners to pay for their meal at the point that they ordered it, how many of them would?

Setting up a scam payment processing account for that doesn't seem worth the effort when it's going to be reported for fraud basically immediately.

You'd be surprised.

"To pay for your 1 x Cheeseburger add egg, please purchase a $10 iTunes gift card and enter the code here: [_______________]"

I think you could set up something clever where the QR code redirected to the correct menu 95% of the time, and maybe it didn't charge the credit card initially, and that would last longer than if you had charged something immediately 100% of the time. However, I think your point still stands that it's not worth the trouble and it doesn't scale well.

> restaurants using some third-party service hosted off-site.

agreed. it's become frustrating. I shouldn't have to make an account with some 3rd party to view specials. Also shouldn't have to look at 2002 style desktop publishing to try to find a menu either.

some have been well done. but not nearly enough.

It’s usually just a menu, not e-shoping at the table. Why would they even implement that, if a waiter has to greet you, bring orders and clean up anyway?

ordering and paying through the QR code is now pretty common place in NYC. fewer waiters can attend more tables.

How does tipping works in those places?

The same way other ordering services does it you can either do it through the app or you can always leave cash on the table as always.

Its usually payment whilst ordering via the site/menu. (Uk) Server just brings food/drinks and doesnt deal with money.

I wish they would just take orders from the site, but pay with a card machine which 107% of people are used to.

I would leave if they won't take payment in person. No way am I signing up for some shitty online service to pay for an in-person meal.

I personally much prefer scanning a code on my receipt then pressing the apple pay button to handing my debit card with all my payment details on it to a stranger.

I'm pretty sure that the only compromised credit card I've had in the past decade was due to something along these lines.

I called a restaurant to get some takeout on Valentine's Day (one that I'd been to for dine-in previously, and had great food), and they told me that they didn't do phone orders, only online orders. I placed my food order, and was immediately also hit with a pending charge of <$1 for a utility provider in a difference province where I've never lived. (I get email notifications of credit card transactions.) Called bank and they cancelled card, so it didn't progress any further.

I'm not inclined to eat at that restaurant again, or to ever order food online again.

It certainly crossed my mind to print up some QR Code stickers that connect you to a wifi network named %p%s%s%s%s%n when you scan them, to slap over random ones around...

http://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?color=000000&bgco...

Malicious Scan Here to Pay on the fuel dispenser/charger, etc

Really didn’t take us long to get back to our first world problems did it?

As with most tech things the QR menus work well when they’re implemented well and poorly when they’re implanted poorly. Multi-language support (without having to print menus in lots of languages that might not get used) is something I’ve seen in a few places. There is also the opportunity to make them a more accessible option if done right. It allows restaurants to make updates to menu items more frequently and more when something isn’t available.

You have a small device, where you have to scroll. So much nicer when you can actually look at the menu.

I suspect there are things that would improve the experience for everyone. For example, instead of the customer asking "Is X gluten free, is Y gluten free" the online menu could have filters for various allergies etc. Online menus could also offer more pictures, videos of meals, better upsells etc.

Videos of meals? Better upsells? Are you trying to create my personal hell?

:) I could see some features becoming quite annoying, especially if you have to click through a bunch of upsells to finally add item to order. I think places could get creative though, for example leave comments for the chef about the meal, make specific requests which the prep team can respond to, have the chef speak about the daily specials in video rather than have a wait staff regurgitate them after having never tried them.

> I could see some features becoming quite annoying, especially if you have to click through a bunch of upsells to finally add item to order.

...which is exactly what would happen, because you can measure how many times the upsell works, but you can't easily measure how many people stop going to your restaurant as a result of this crap, and companies will literally kill people if they can find metrics to show it's profitable.

> I think places could get creative though, for example leave comments for the chef about the meal, make specific requests which the prep team can respond to, have the chef speak about the daily specials in video rather than have a wait staff regurgitate them after having never tried them.

Having worked in food service in the past, the last thing chefs want is comments on the meal from customers. The ignorance and rudeness of the general public when it comes to food is astounding.

The chef speaking about the daily specials might be the only reasonable idea here, but my gut feel is that the only people who would use this would be tech folks interested in the feature, not end users. I don't think this is probably enough of a value add to be worth implementing.

They could, but they never do. I've only gone out dining twice so far, and one time was a QR code place. But their PDF wasn't even text-searchable.

Ah yes, the "accessibility" of a $200+ smartphone. $500+ if you actually want it to come with a working ad-free QR reader preinstalled.

82% of the population in the UK own a smartphone. On top of that, if you don’t have one, no restaurant is denying you service.

The largest number of people I could find affected by sight loss in the UK was 4.1 million by 2050, which is obviously far larger than the current number--and sight loss doesn't mean they can't read a paper menu in many cases[1]. The population of the UK is just over 68 million[2].

So two posts ago you were extolling the virtues of accessibility for at most 6% of UK's population, but now it's suddenly no big deal that 18% of the UK's population can't access your menu. And that's ignoring folks like my father: he technically has a smart phone, but he never has it on him and he wouldn't know how to scan a QR code even if he did have his smart phone on him.

And sure, nobody is turning away people without smart phones or blind people. Anyone is welcome to order food as long as they can figure out what your restaurant actually makes.

[1] https://www.rnib.org.uk/nb-online/eye-health-statistics

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingd...

EDIT: You also completely ignored my point about having a working ad-free QR reader installed. I've got an entry-level Samsung phone, which did not come with a built-in QR code reader. The free one I downloaded came with ads.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who doesn't want 15 different companies telling each other what I just ate for lunch.

But then who would profit from it‽

Thanks for letting me know that I'm not alone! :D

I handle QR codes by taking a picture and decoding on the command line using zbarimg. If the decoded output is a URL and looks safe I might visit the site. No way I'm letting an insecure device (basically all smartphones) follow random links blindly like that. And no way I'm giving up my data points for free if I can avoid it (remember how market researchers used to pay people to participate in focus group interviews?)

QR codes work fine where I live. I believe problems are due to the implementation, not with the concept.

I find it very convenient. Connect to the local wifi, there's no confirmation code, just open wifi (most of the time - some of them have an unnecessary "accept" step. Never any "confirmation code"). Scan. Browse. Choose. Pay, or pay later (convenient, I can adjust the tip before I pay).

All in all it's much faster than having to wait for a waiter to come to the table to take the orders. We can add and remove and make up our minds in peace, then just sit down and wait - drinks arrive straight away, the rest later.

And we don't have to wait forever to get the bill and to pay. It's all done. In short, to me it's a great improvement. Obviously it wouldn't be if the implementation hadn't been good, but around here it is.

Edit - let me add that most places I visit also have a physical menu to look at, it's just that ordering and payment is done via the web browser.

To each their own, but that sounds less enjoyable than a traditional restaurant experience to me. As you say in your example, so much depends on the "implementation" in this case too — i.e. is the service at the restaurant good or not — but a talented waiter brings a lot to the table in more ways than one.

For me it depends on the type of restaurant.

Some restaurants live and die by their ambiance. But others the main draw is the food and/or the price and/or the speed. In that case, I would enjoy having a QR code order option.

> ordering and payment is done via the web browser

This still assumes each customer has a phone. I bought an LTE watch so I could leave the distraction of my phone behind while I dine.

Digital menus can work when they are made for the digital format. Most Qr codes are just the menus that were made to look beautiful on paper and suck to look at on your phone, I don't want to have to open up my phone and jump between pages on two separate documents on my phone. It's also terrible that I have to waste my battery life to order food every time.

The ideal situation is isn't the China situation people are describing of scanning with their phone and opening an app or custom made site, it's the situation in Japan with a small tablet on the table everyone just puts their orders into and food is delivered as the orders are received when combined with a call bell for refills or asking questions. I don't have to install anything or worry about tracking.

Indeed, pair it with Apple Pay and it's like 5 tap deal.

QR code already knows which table it is and even payment can be optional after the meal (tho I got so used to paying before I might just leave without paying nowadays).

> Most Qr codes are just the menus that were made to look beautiful on paper and suck to look at on your phone

This is only the case because restaurants had to hurriedly find a solution to a bazillion problems at once, on a strained budget. Corners get cut.

This is a point I see missing in many of the top level posts, here. Restaurants literally went to the easiest solution for a more sanitary and viral transmission-free method to communicate a menu to customers. Of course it isn't going to be perfect. But everyone is a critic.

I've had a waiter looking at me puzzled why my phone wasn't able to scan a QR code. I told him already that my camera wasn't able to. But I had to open the camera in front of him.

- "Have you tried rotating the camera?"

- "Try zooming in and out"

- "Why don't you download a QR code app!?"

These questions / remarks were placed by him while showing him it really didn't work.

When I told him I didn't want to download a QR scanner application due to privacy reasons he left with an even more puzzled face as before, to walk inside and finally bring me a paper menu.

These f*cking QR-codes _made_ me an annoying customer.

I seriously hope Google pushes their OEM to include QR code support in the builtin camera app.

This should be a default feature.

That said, if you want a privacy-friendly QR Code reader app on Android, Binary Eye is my recommendation.

GitHub: https://github.com/markusfisch/BinaryEye

Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.markusfisch...

F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/de.markusfisch.android.binaryey...

Thanks for the tip on Binary Eye. I've long used Barcode Scanner [0] from f-droid, which appears to be the origin of the "Zebra Crossing" scanner implementation Binary Eye uses. "Barcode Scanner" is now in maintenance mode, so it's good to have a migration path!

Google really does its users a disservice by not simply providing a decent barcode scanner with AOSP. The lack of such a basic utility makes it so easy for users to install spyware in frustration just trying to accomplish the task (sort of like the early "flashlight apps").

I've long wondered why they decided to make this task so hard - it reminds me of their omission of video output on the Pixel phones, but in that case their motivations are clear (they want to force people to use Cast instead) - I seriously can't understand what their rationale is for making QR scanning difficult!

[0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.google.zxing.client.andr...

> I seriously hope Google pushes their OEM to include QR code support in the builtin camera app.

afaik that is alrady the case

> This should be a default feature.

A decade ago. This should have been a default feature a decade ago. Feature phones had QR code readers in the first half of the 00s. QR codes had a worldwide resurgence in the early 10s and now again in the early 20s.

How this is not a default feature is absolutely crazy.

It's called "Lens" mode in the camera app, and isn't obvious to find, but it's there.

The average person expects the camera to simply recognize them by merely detecting one in the viewfinder, they don't expect to download an app or press a button to enable the feature.

It's seamless on iOS and on many (but not all) Android camera app.

Also, Lens is most likely uploading all sort of data directly to Google, not the best solution for a privacy-conscious person (I'm aware of the irony of privacy implication when talking of Android, but it's either that or the walled garden of Apple).

In Sweden the QR menues tend to be based on Facebook messenger. The restaurants that use this system also tend to push very hard for avoiding manual orders and payments. It is a complete farce every time, since most of the people I go out with don't use Facebook. We are usually not the only patrons annoyed by this, so I hope they give up soon. I will never go pack to a place that don't let me order normally.

> The restaurants that use this system also tend to push very hard for avoiding manual orders and payments.

This is the real issue I see with this system going forward. Becoming a second-class client simply because I don't have a cell-phone on me at all times is not going to be great.

Depends on the setting, honestly. In a cafe, it's nice to continue working while just ordering on the QR. In some sit down restaurants, it does feel like the service is strictly lower quality with the QR codes. It's hard to convey what exactly you want sometimes, especially since not all these QR apps have a notes section.

Allergies? Substitutions? This stuff just gets slightly harder/annoying, albeit not horribly difficult ofc. I find myself agreeing most with the authors on this, though:

> I despise spending the first 10 minutes of a social engagement on my phone.

This just sucks and I'm tired of it.

"... it's nice to continue working..." yes, this is also the problem with so many cafes. People go there to get some work done but also to interact. To strike up conversations about work or life with people outside your usual bubble. If you didn't want to be around other people you could stay in the office or at home. But in recent years everyone wears headphones and has so many devices that walking into a cafe at lunchtime is like going into a call center. What's the point? I've worked on laptops in cafes since the early 90s when I was usually the only one with a computer. But I learned the civility that if you're going to work in a public space, part of the reason you're doing that is to take time away from your work to interact with other people, including the service staff. Usually I would never go work "out" until all the job reqs for the day were done and I was comfortable being interrupted. To go into a public space and tune everything out and demand that it function like your private office is a bizarre antisocial feature of a generation that has spent too much time on social media and doesn't know how to act or respond in real life. Walking into those places now just makes me sad.

From my view... there are cafes for working and cafes for socializing, and to me they have different vibes and regulars. Or perhaps I'm fortunate enough to live in a city where there's such a distinction, I'm not really sure.

For example, there used to be a cafe around here with a designated 'no laptops, no work' area and some board games (R.I.P. Longfellow's). There's a local chain that doesn't even provide WiFi. Contrast that to the hyper-sterile Blue Bottle Coffee less than a mile away -- I actually do like their coffee, but I don't go there to socialize. It's a space optimized to cycle people in-and-out ASAP.

Pre-COVID I actually ran a small mailing list for people to hang out at rotating local cafes, so I get what you mean to some extent. Even then, you're probably right that doesn't seem as dire to me because I grew up post-2000.

I'm old enough to remember when the 'no laptops' signs sprouted and then quickly were overwhelmed or went out of business. I didn't take it personally - by that point I understood that my gf and I making graphics and websites while talking to the regulars wasn't the problem. Most of what I'm referencing is in South America, Thailand, Vietnam, France, Czechia and Spain. Generally liquor licenses are permissive and they're family owned, so, a lot of places serve coffee during the day and transition to bars and nightclubs at night. There is a general flow to your day where as evening approaches, you switch from corfee to alcohol and people you know come and populate your table, sometimes they work and if they're coders you talk shop about databases or something, then it gets too loud so you go out with whoever came by and get dinner. And if the server is finished you invite them too. This is what I considered a civilized form of working in a cafe with a computer on your table. And even at that,any times my gf thought it might be rude so we'd put it away and play chess or read.

I think if people had an awareness of their surroundings in these spaces, the spaces wouldn't have turned into sterilized off-campus work sites. But that may be asking too much from people who've never experienced it. I think this is what some of the 90s/00s startups were trying to replicate with their play rooms, but that's a far cry from sitting with a local dev and a taxi driver and a drunk musician spitting out ideas To me that's what the cafe is for.

(edit) I don't mean this to come off as the rant of an old gen X-er... it sounds to me like you had a real appreciation for the counterculture of ideas that could bubble up from having some limits and creativity in those spaces. You woulda loved the 90s. But maybe if enough people get sick of Blue Bottle Coffee and Starbucks, we can claw some humanity back. As it is, the less work-centric and more friends-and-family-centric parts if the world mostly reject the cafe as workplace model. They didn't used to find it so rude but they do now. I hope we have a backlash in the States if only because people really need that space to be verbal, interacting humans with each other. Especially on a lunch break.

I live in France and I've never heard of something like that. There's usually a strict distinction between bars and cafés, with cafés being where people take a coffee or an orange juice during the day with friends, and bars where people drink beer during the night with friends, and sometimes meet other people.

The conversion from cafe in the day to bar/club at night is more common in Spain and Argentina, but there are places around in France. I lived in a couple villages in Auvergne near Clermont-Ferrand and also in Avignon. The places that are cafes in the day will convert at night in these smaller towns. The whole square in Avignon is cafes in day and bars at night. (In Paris or Marseille I didn't really see this - but it's prevalent in Madrid and Buenos Aires).

> In Paris or Marseille I didn't really see this

That's probably this then, I've lived in Lyon all my life.

I wish I had spent more time in Lyon. The countryside around there probably seems boring to you, since you grew up in the city. But coming from America, it's obvious that the smallest village in France is light-years more advanced, more educated, clever and civilized than the country I grew up in. It has its problems of course, but it's paradise compared to most other places I've been.

Funny, slightly dark story about Avignon. I became friendly with a guy there who was a good musician but turned out to be a bit of a...right wing type. National Front. There was a cafe on the square that was a gay club at night, and my girlfriend and I used to have coffee there in the day. One day this guy walked by and said "don't you know what this bar is where you're sitting?" I said, "come on, chill out, sit down." He took some convincing. So finally he sat down and I said, "I know you like Le Pen. How do you feel about sitting in front of a gay bar with an Filipina/Mexican and Jew/Argentine? Are you angry we're in your country?" He said, "as long as you're here because you're interested in France, I'm okay." Later, walking through town, he saw a kid urinating on the front step of an apartment. He shouted at the kid and the kid pulled a knife out. This guy tackled him. Still later we took a bus to the station through the banlieu and saw the desolation - she said, "what have they done to their country?"

Eh. I shouldn't tell these stories on HN. I guess it taught me that life is complicated and to bring it full circle to the cafe question, your view of the world is very relative to where you grew up, in what time period, and what you expect people to behave like.

On the contrary, the countryside has a lot of appeal to me. For a few years we lived in a rather isolated house in Dardilly and I have fond memories of them. Not really the same experience as the countryside but I'm really glad I spent some of my youth here and not directly in the city.

Thank you for sharing that story, it's thanks to people like you that bring some new perspective I started to love my country for what it is.

> In a cafe, it's nice to continue working while just ordering on the QR

That doesn't sound like a cafe (or a workplace)

Different strokes for different folks. Seen this at a few cafes on the East Coast, but it's not the norm as dine-in is barely returning.

I've been loading the menus on my phone before I get to the restaurant. Works great. Never have to concern myself with a signal or wifi or anything. And sometimes I even know what I want before I show up.

Also, because of the QR code trend, more restaurants now have updated menus on their websites.

When I invite friends to dinner, I text them all links to the menu so they don't have to deal with the on-site awkwardness.

I have nothing against printed menus, but I think there's some real potential with dynamic menus that are immediately accessible to everyone even before they arrive.

Multiple language support, immediately-adjustable specials menu, filtering for food preference and allergy requirements, maybe even an ordering history allowing you to re-order, or explicitly not order the same thing twice, even ordering (or server hailing).

It's clear the UX isn't there yet, but it was all thrown together by non-technical small-business owners on short notice, who have been trying to make things work at a very strange time. I'm actually kind of impressed at how well it's generally worked in my experience. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.

I'm surprised the author didn't mention the worst part

In most cases, the file is called "menu.pdf", so after downloading the PDF you then have to figure out if menu(12).pdf is the cocktail menu or the food menu.

I do wonder how this effects accessibility. What if I don't have a device with me? What if I have a disability that prevents me from using a device? Seems like this might be an ADA compliance liability.

I am guessing you then ask for a paper menu and they give you one. You can probably just do that even if you don't have any issues. I've done that a few times when the online menu was annoying.

Not true at all!

Many bars (that now call themselves "tap houses") have beer menus that are either only online, or printed in a 20pt font on a 54" LCD TV behind the bar.

It is super annoying to have to get up for each beer because the server doesn't know what #32 out of 70 is let alone which number is a lager, and then not be able to read the menu (because my eyes suck) until I'm leaning over the bar.

Super, super annoying.

That does suck

With two competing channels, we won't have to wait long until one becomes an afterthought. I personally hope that QR codes (or whatever requires to use a smartphone) will be the one going the way of the dodo.

QR codes are fine.

What is varying quality is the menus served by the links in QR codes. Some can be great, some can be terrible, and everything in between. Same thing with paper menus, except they are also bulky.

A lot of menus on phones I find difficult as it is pretty unclear what the popular items are. Am I supposed to be looking at antipasta or "chicken" or "plates"?

This isn't a given. Places could design better instead of designing for paper and then just putting that online. But I still strongly prefer not to have to take out phone when with people.

It looks like a perfect SaaS opportunity.

A good menu generator, with competent web layout, readable, zoomable, searchable. Results may be hosted or sent as a bunch of static files.

The menu SPA page collects patrons' choices and forms a nice order for the waiter, as a text and as a QR code.

Flat monthly rate for up to 200 menu updates a day, effectively unlimited but preventing abuse. A small flat fee for serving the menus online and generation of the QR code. One-time fee for each piece of personalization / branding work beyond the standard templates.

Looks like a perfect side project for a couple of weekends, and then incessant low-intensity marketing efforts.

It's valid to ask this question: What problem(s) are digital menu's really solving? I can spot a handful.

For restaurant owners: ease of updating the menu (pricing, dishes, suggestions,...), (perceived) lower cost of maintaining paper menu's (whether disposable or reusable).

For patrons: you can bookmark the menu if it's a webpage on the restaurant's website, there's (perceived) accessibility (e.g. font zooming) but that's offset with the higher bar of scanning a QR code.

Maybe there's a niche market to be spotted for BI / data acquisition? It would be quite a tenuous proposition, since consulting a menu isn't the sames as capturing orders. Not to mention the hairy privacy issues associated here.

Here's an alternate business case where the perceived benefits of QR codes are greatly diminished pending the specific context: museums and galleries. The success of using QR codes works pending on the type of audience, the type of collection, the vision on the specific user experience a museum wants to achieve, the ability to spend time / resources on providing and keeping digital content up to date, time spend helping people out,... It's not as easy as "slap QR codes on a wall, and they will be scanned."

In the same vain, QR codes may work well in some venues, and they won't work at all in others. Context matters. A lot. For instance, if you operate a bar or restaurant in a cozy, 19th century, cottage setting and you want to foster that specific atmosphere / experience towards your patrons, sticking QR codes to the old wood would immediately detract from that. I don't see QR codes work greatly either if your into a gastronomic / gourmet niche for instance. Opposite of the spectrum, there's fast food chains and loads of small businesses who just want to get food out of the door and not much more: to them, a menu is just a business expense and a QR code is a good solution to cut costs.

I don't really mind QR codes. When I go to a run-of-the-mill place for take out, I don't mind scanning a code. My expectations will change, however, if I'm going to spend time and money hoping to get a specific experience out of it.

A lot of places I frequent in Kansas City switched to QR codes on tables that redirect to an online menu. I like it - less clutter on the table, no giving back of printed menus, no asking for the drinks menu back when the server comes around for another round, and no asking for the dessert menu at the end of the meal if I'm actually interested in dessert.

Another great aspect of the QR code driven menus is that after my meal or drink arrives I still have the menu readily available, so I can check what is in the dish or drink that's in front of me. It's great for foodie restaurants that give lots of description in the menu - before, when the meal came out I would sometimes find myself wondering what that odd shaped component was on my plate, but with a first class phone accessible menu I can get back to the description of what I ordered and figure out what's on my plate, or figure out what might be making my drink taste like bitter orange.

I didn't notice how much I liked these things until I recently traveled to Santa Fe, where every place was still using printed menus. One drink menu for a table of five? Let's all pass it around and tell the server to come back in a few minutes after we've had a chance to look one by one. Server took all of the menus after ordering, then comes around after the meal inquiring if we want dessert? I don't know what's on the menu, but I'm not interested in waiting for the server to come back with the menu. I ordered posole as a side, but forgot what the description was? I guess I'll google it...

One of the nice things about being at a restaurant is that you get to be away from your digital bullshit and be around other humans who are also not focused on digital bullshit.

I've never enjoyed standing at the bar waiting to order, not even as an underage teen when going to a pub or club was a shiny new experience. Never. And especially not when it's busy. (If I never again experience standing 10 deep at the bar in a busy Wetherspoons, or a gig, on a Saturday night I will shed not one single solitary tear.)

So in some sense table service is an improvement. But I'm with the author on QR codes and mobile ordering. I'm sick to the back teeth of it. Every other restaurant or pub has their own flawed and busted-ass interpretation of how an ordering app should work, and payment is an inconsistent mess. Some places have an app, some have a website. None of it works the same bloody way, and it can all go and do one in the ninth circle of Hades as far as I'm concerned.

These are all first world problems, but they're still problems. And I'd take standing at the bar and ordering drinks over any of them, with possible exceptions for the busier scenarios I specifically picked out in my first paragraph.

(Don't overinterpret me: I don't mind sticking to the rules for the time being, but when restrictions relax and I don't have to do any of these annoying things any more I will literally skip for joy.)

I had the most amazing experience at Oregon City Brewing with my good friend as my first post-pandemic drink. They had pretty standard paper menus with drink lists, but the QR code popped up a version that let you pick a few AND PAY using Apple Pay, Google Pay, then you got your drinks delivered by the same friendly waitstaff. It was a great experience and no cash or cards exchanged hands. I think more quick serve/bars should be doing this.

How long before someone exploits this?

- Build an app that injects malware but also shows the restaurant's menu. Give it the same name as the restaurant.

- Go to the restaurant, overlay your QR code sticker on top of the restaurant's.

- When someone scans the code they are asked to install "[Restaurant's name] menu", obviously they are going to do it.

- They open the app -> malware is activated, menu is shown. Profit.

That exploit would only work once.

As soon as the first customer, who gets charged $20 or whatever, reports that they didn’t get their meal it would be checked.

And then it would be pretty easy to find out when the QR codes were replaced. Then camera footage of that person would be sent to the police and they would be up for fraud. Great exploit.

I'm totally going to use my 0day iOS sandbox escape to steal the $50 order from the restaurant down the street.

As mentioned in the article, having a digital menu allows for a restaurant to adjust its offering in subtle and responsive ways. If a place is out of one ingredient, those items for which it is necessary could be struck.

Or one could have "surge pricing" — not desirable as a customer, but certainly for a dining establishment. And one could also collect more information on customers.

I'm still inclined toward tangible menus. For the one positive point (adaptability), I am reminded of one of the best restaurant meals that I ever had. The beer menu was a small laminated card, but the brief food menu was just written on a chalk board each day. When I arrived a few items were already struck with a line through them. One really can't beat that kind of simplicity, with no reliance on digital devices unless for payment, if desired.

(kelnos pointed out that I missed something in the article; edited to address that point.)

> If a place is out of one ingredient, those items for which it is necessary could be struck.

The article actually does mention that exact thing.

Thanks. Not sure how I missed the line in the brackets; I'd only caught the part about seasonal entrees somehow.

They could even charge different customers different rates, partnering with advertising firms to provide customer identification and segmentation.

Or show a more affluent customer a different menu — one where everything is labelled deluxe, bespoke, or through terminology substitutions similar to "Patagonian toothfish" → "Chilean sea bass".

Interesting as my startup is going in the opposite direction. WE've embraced QR codes and trying to make the experience of ordering from a menu even better.

Unlike these guys, we're working on software that makes the waiter more efficient. You download the phone app and scan the code that the waiter gives you. From there, you have shared list between you and all your friends at the table from which you can send orders directly to the waiter from the app. The customers can hail the waiter and we plan to add direct messaging as well in the future.

We've noticed that while some people enthusiastically love the system, its a 50/50 split between those who prefer paying from in our app and those that pay the waiter directly the old fashioned way.

We're currently in a few select high profile restaurants in London and hoping to expand soon.

Wait, you're saying I have to install your app on my phone if I want to view the menu? I find the QR menus annoying, but not a huge deal. But requesting I install an app would get me to ask my group if we could dine somewhere else.

Totally understand the reservation about using the app. In our case, we're hoping the convenience of being able to call the waiter or order directly from the app at your favorite restaurant will earn its place in your phone.

The way we set it up, use of the app is entirely optional. The waiter can still take your orders the old fashioned way. wether they have regular menus as well is up to the restaurant as is the option of everyone paying separately through the app. Our waiter app allows the waiter to take care of everything on his end for those that are opposed enough to downloading another app.

My biggest surprise in these comments is that people seem to have actually successfully used a QR code! I always assumed they were an iPhone only feature, so I ignore them.

I've read that the Android camera app is supposed to recognize QR codes, but it doesn't seem to on my phone.

On Android, you open your camera app and then tap on "Google Lens". This allows you to scan QR codes.

The text "Google Lens" may not appear even though it is present. My Google Lens button is a cryptic symbol. Modern user interface design seems to give bonus points for being cryptic and obscure because companies are hostile to the idea that they might empower the user - a sense of confusion and uncertainty acts as a form of lockin.

A.k.a. “mystery meat navigation”.

It varies on Android, some manufacturers ship custom camera apps that include automatic QR code detection and decoding. Many people don't even realize the Android they're using is really a highly-customized vendor skin and suite of apps. Samsung in particular does this, and its camera app auto recognizes QR codes.

I have a Pixel bought directly from the Google Store, so I assumed it'd have the most recent features, whatever they are! The Pixel 3a, though, doesn't seem to do anything special with QR codes, besides photographing them.

That's super weird because I have the original Pixel and it has no problem scanning QR codes from the camera app. That's a pretty big QoL downgrade two versions later.

Firefox has a QR code scanner - if you tap the URL bar, it has a "scan" button that lets you scan a QR code and use it as a URL. Perhaps Chrome does as well, i d k because I don't use Chrome.

Till I learnt about that, I used a simple QR code scanner from F-Droid (since Playstore is completely untrustworthy for generic utilities).

I have a Pixel 3a as well. I just point the default camera app at the QR codes and it pops up the relevant link every time.

I believe earlier Android versions did use camera, but now you have to use Google lens. It's extremely well hidden.

On my phone, I have to open up the Google app and click on the icon after the microphone on the search bar to open up Google Lens. Once I am in it, clicking on the three dots icon gives an option to add Lens to home screen.

Not necessarily. On my android phone the link provided by the QR code shows up in the regular camera app.

The camera app I have (preinstalled from Moto) can read QR codes. Links are OK, but it can't handle QR payments. You'd expect the phone to forward it to the right app, but no - you need to open that one yourself and use the scanner in there. There's probably a reason for it, maybe all the banks I use do something wrong and Android is capable of this, but at the end of the day, this doesn't matter. QR codes are more often than not frustrating experience for end users, especially those not tech-savvy enough. It's ridiculous, we can do better than this.

QR codes were invented at Toyota in the 1990s IIRC. They're extremely well-documented and supported.

I've been using that reader for about 10 years, it still works great despite seeing few updates: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.google.zxing.client.android

There may be quicker, prettier or more featureful apps, but this one serves my needs. I use zbarcam on my PC.

QR codes pre-date iPhones by many years. App that I used to use on previous Android phones whose camera apps didn't read QR codes: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.zxi...

(It's open source so you can take a look at the source and then compile it yourself if you don't trust this page.)

On iPhone Firefox has QR code support - you click on the address bar and tiny QR icon appears on the right. Maybe Firefox on Android does the same?

QR menus are fantastic here. It's such a pleasurable experience. No more menus with something taped or scribbled on it due to a pricing adjustment. Given the proliferation of languages spoken here, people frequently take a menu and run it through Google Translate, literally getting restaurants more business as a result.

It's at the point where I just find paper menus antiquated and aggravating. Heck, many places just pass out tablets now, for the same reason. It's literally easier to pass out cheap tablets with the menu already loaded as a PDF, than it is to deal with paper.

Literally every restaurant I've eaten at since reopening has QR menus, but the host/hostess always asks if we want paper menus.

Maybe the author can ask for the paper menu instead of writing manufactured outrage articles.

Yes, my partner and I recently went out to eat and did not bring our phones. I said, “We don’t have our phones.” The server brought us paper menus, and we were all OK.

I agree, I want paper menus always, but maybe for different reasons.

Today it is difficult to go out to eat with friends or family without everybody being on their damned phones. Making people use QR codes just gives them an excuse to get it out to look at the menu, and then check their email while its out, reply to a non-urgent text, and finally might as well look at reddit for a few moments.

I want the opposite of this nightmare we live. I want people out of their phones and into discussions. I want their attention, and to give them mine. Phones get in the way of that exchange.

Definitely not looking forward to it whenever I get to travel internationally again and am relegated to free 2G or 3G networks and trying to load a restaurants heavy website just so I can look at the menu.

I really despise when the QR code just sends you to the App Store to download some (crappy, probably web-to-native) app, where you have to create an account, verify your email, then add credit card details manually. Extra points off if there's no wifi and the venue is somewhere with poor signal, so it takes 10 minutes and rinses my battery.

A web-based menu that just opens the browser and lets me pay with Apple Pay is acceptable given the current circumstances.

I dislike having several single-use apps for random pubs and restaurants cluttering my phone.

So don't patronize such places! If people don't refuse it this bullshit will spread.

I agree with the sentiment, but unfortunately you only find out how the menu/ordering system works once you've already sat down, and given everything here in the UK needs to be booked ahead of time, it's not as simple as just going somewhere else down the road.

Why not both? Qr codes are sometimes quickest, as you dont need to wait for the waiter to bring the menus.

At the same time the hostess asks "Would you like crayons for the toddler?", it'd be simple to add "We have a digital menu, but would you like physical menus?". Or even a put "Physical menu available on request" below the QR code.

> One of my family members is in his late 70s, loves dining out, and only owns a flip phone with no internet connectivity. He’s already excluded from much of our increasingly digital society;

I remember reading a Sci-Fi short story where the main character was digitally excluded; I forget if this was a criminal sentence or a matter of "backwards living" [no offence to Amish and similar]. I remember a scene where the main character had to interface with a digital menu type of terminal and he couldn't -- either because of ignorance or legal incapability. A child noticed and offered to help him out.

For about 15 years I had a flip phone, well into the "everyone has a smart phone now" age. I felt the limitations of no internet, no QR, no this, no that. Phone calls and texts only.

I switched after I lost my phone at ... get this ... a Sci-Fi convention. And I waited a year between loss and re-acquiring//upgrading. Yes I got the "You don't have a cell phone?!?" shaming, just as I did the Gibbs flip-phone shaming beforehand. Nowadays I "pass" like normal.

Rambling Point Being: This QR Code Menu deal going on... I've encountered it, I don't like it either, I've been able to deal with it only because I lost and replaced a cell phone.

One physical menu please. Thank you. Sorry for being an cartoon alien crab and here I am.

This has been a really interesting thread for us, if anyone commenting here wants to provide some more feedback on QR code based menus and payment at table and have a more in-depth discussion feel free to reach out at hn@pomelopay.com.

We have a product directly related to this which we're always keen to improve - https://www.pomelopay.com/features/table-ordering

This shows that there is room for a well designed, easy menu app. No ordering, no separate app installs, no mandatory accounts for the end-customer, no PDF menus.

Native app clip / instant app is a also a good use case for this if you really want to develop more than just a good mobile site. Add the ability for the owner to quickly make changes to the menu (dish of the day?) and it should be better than what we have right now.

Of course only if you have decent internet coverage at the place.

I could not agree more.

Additionally, if you are going to use a QR code and web page as opposed to a physical menu, there's no shame in just statically hosting a PDF of your menu.

It's so frustrating that some bars/restaurants use some third party App that wants me to store my email address and credit card. Also janky UI that's totally unnecessary, considering a static page totally suffices.

I think online menus are much better and environmentally friendly than physical ones.

Really hope many places just stick with online menu - also allows for quick updates and changes.

If navigating there is done via QR code, NFC or some other means is a different question. but QR codes seem to work really well for this sort of thing and even non tech users can easily figure it out.

I don’t even know if serving the menu from a data center on the other side of the country is more environmentally friendly. Besides talk about “high hanging fruit “ if what, a 100 pieces of recyclable paper per restaurant are the environmental issue we should be tackling.

> but QR codes seem to work really well for this sort of thing and even non tech users can easily figure it out.

Good luck explaining that to my grandmother who doesn't own a smartphone.

I don't have a phone number (verification) and don't bring internet with me all the time. Guess that would already lock me out me out of many restaurants? But same is true for most tourists.

I haven't been out eating since the pandemic, but if this makes uncomplicated WiFi hotspots in restaurants more common I am ok with it I guess.

I was always wondering, how secure are QR code menus? What if someone will quietly put identically looking QR code that would point not to https://coolcafe.xyz/menu/table/5, but to https://thecoolcafe.xyz/menu/table/5, that is a full copy of the legit site, just with payment form logging CC details and then throwing some vague error and then redirecting to legit site (or even more elaborate scam with proxying all requests to legit site and logging all data)? Should be pretty low-effort and low-risk operation to collect CC details. Clients do not know which site they expect to land on when they scan that QR code.

This has already started happening in India where thiefs are replacing QR codes which are stuck outside of a Shop

QR codes are great, please keep them.

I'll order what I want at my leisure, not having to flag down a server is a plus. We often make up fun little games to see who has to order the next round.

Menus can be surprisingly disgusting if the waitstaff is really busy, I'd rather not touch them and/or lay them on the table.

It all depends on how well-implemented, or not.

For example, Toasttab QR codes on the paper tab work brilliantly. They do not require the restaurant to retool with thousands of dollars of mobile devices for servers. Excellent use of a QR code.

As others have pointed out, getting a pdf that does not format well on your smartphone is a disappointing experience, but that is not the fault of the QR code. The problem is in what comes after.

You could be able to order from your table via smartphone, but usually you can't because the landing page is a dumb pdf of a paper menu, and the QR code does not include information about which table you are at, and the restaurant systems need human intervention to know when to open a new tab.

I recently went on a date and had to explain to the waiter that we are old, and it's going to take us a while. Which was funny, but I don't have a QR reader on my phone, and I wasn't going to haphazardly install something at a restaurant just to see the whiskey menu.

Luckily, my non-technical date had a mainstream phone that came with a QR reader. Using it redirected her to a word doc hosted on a google drive. And there was no link to this word doc on the restaurants official website.

If you're going to do QR codes, the menu should be available from the website, there should be a printed url under the QR code, and it should be an actual webpage. Preferably lightweight static html.

To say "bring menus back" isn't forward thinking. Menu's are gross, not all resturants bother to clean them because to do so is a burden on service flow. They're also an uneeded environmental factor.

This pandemic was a complete reflection of human laziness. With the technology we're spoiled with, if there's an effortless way to carry better hygiene habits, we should make use of it.

So to the author, you can be as bummed as you want watching customers stare down at phones. You can go ahead and paint it as some Orwellian fever dream. I don't want this planet's landfills to load up on slightly cracked Cheesecake factory booklets.

It's all in the execution. If all the QR code does is send you to a PDF file of the printed version, without any text reflow or responsiveness to the screen size then I agree, it's a terrible experience.

If it points to a website properly designed for multiple screen size, and the WiFi works well without too many hassle or a mandatory invasion of privacy (login to Facebbok to access the WiFi network? No thank you), then it can be a great experience. The restaurant should make sure to have at least a couple of printed copies in case someone can't use their phone, if there's a website outage, etc.

As person with poor vision I would love digital menus to stay. I could not count how many times I've struggled to read a badly designed menu in a dim dining room. On my phone it is always bright and I can zoom.

I understand the benefits of phyiscal menus, but I for one relied on QR codes when working in China. I could go into a restaurant alone and use screenshots + google translate to essentially feed myself. Without a QR code, it was a gamble as to whether there were photos for me to see to order. Moreover, I didn't have to assume the waiter knew English, they'd just ferry out my food to my table when it was ready. I relied on this multiple times whilst there.

There's certainly benefits to both, and offering both makes sense to me. As with all things, a few options tends to be good.

Google Translate has been using OCR to replace foreign text in live camera input for several years. Didn't it work on Chinese printed menus?

When I was last in China (I've been last twice in the last 5 years) I still couldn't even get data on my phone. Does GT work well offline?

If you can't get data on your phone, how does a QR code link help you out? It seems you're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Yeh, I could photograph and use OCR on the menu, but it's not as reliable because of the varying quality of the printed menu text. A second thing was realising that the realtime OCR wasn't as good as an image and then scanning afterwards.

However, that still doesn't address the issue of having to communicate! I guess I also found QR Code menus to generally have more pics than printed ones, so it covered off both of those issues.

I should add that the QR codes were not just the menu, but also your table so when you placed an order through Wechat it knew what table you were at so they'd literally just bring it over when it's ready.

I've never seen a QR code menu. I wasn't aware that this is a thing.

An I the only one?

It seems to be a regional thing. I never noticed em much in the wider region where i live in Belgium but then i went to Brussels and suddenly every restaurant and bar had em.

Some at least did have regular menus too and the barcodes mostly served as a quicker alternative until said menu was brought.

I used a self serve coke machine the other week. You scanned a QR code and then your phone would connect remotely to the machine. You selected your drink and then you pressed the dispense button on your phone. Neat tech but unusable if you don't have data or don't have a good signal. And it had a noticeable delay from pressing the button to when the actual device would stop. If you were unlucky I'm sure that somehow you could end up overfilling your cup and spilling it everywhere. Didn't look like it had much in the way of drainage.

As a former waiter, I tip extra well. If I encountered this, I'd be tempted not to tip at all except maybe slipping a $10 bill to the runner or the bus boy. And I wouldn't go back to the restaurant.

I’m also a former wait person so I don’t understand why you would punish the server because of the owner’s business decision.

If the servers don't get good tips, they go work elsewhere, so it eventually punishes the owner. Sucks for the servers in the meantime though.

Pretty much this. I would probably quit a restaurant that did this because on the face of it, it takes away my ability to serve the customer, listen to them, explain, upsell, and generally provide the service they're tipping me for. Why would I expect a good tip if I didn't have that interaction with them?

Huh, you know, I've never seen that before. I guess restaurants around here know people wouldn't put up with it. Basically all of them switched to single-use paper menus.

I read an article a few years back (Though I am unable to find it now) that complained about diners taking longer and longer to order these days, especially because they play around with their phones instead of perusing the menu. (I think this conclusion was based on surveillance tapes)

I do wonder if having the menu on your phone could actually be more engaging to these kind of diners (or at least prevent them from doing anything else), so that the whole ordering food process is sped up?

I also recall that. This 7-year-old article pretty much says the same thing:

https://gothamist.com/food/restaurant-finds-phone-zombies-sl...

A less-polite phrasing of your theory: Fed-up restaurant owners are trying to claw back as much as they can from the overhead and miseries of dealing with phone-addicted customers.

Please just do away with the back-and-forth dance of paying for a meal on literal silver platters. In a busy cash-only restaurant you can spend 10 minutes on that alone.

How do you know that the QR code is to the proper website address and not from a flyer placed by the last person at the table (pointing to a malicious website).

I like the dining experience while in Japan. Restaurants have kiosks at the entrance taking order and payment. You select the order from the menu and pay right there (cash or CC). The machine prints a ticket and sends the order to the kitchen. You give the ticket to the wait staff. They sit you and begin to bring what’re in the order to you, drinks, appetizers, meals when ready.

Simple, efficient, fast, low touch, low tech, and no tip.

One benefit of them is reduction is paper waste. If a restaurant needs to update its menu, it doesn’t need to do a reprint, it can just update the website.

No kidding! I got in the habit of not taking my phone with me everywhere I go, and suddenly QR codes and beer-tap menus are all online? Great.

What happens when you tell the staff you don’t have your phone? Do they not bring you a menu at that point?

I hate this as well. When I take my family out for dinner, I'm the only person out of 5 with a phone that can use the digital menus, and often I'd prefer to not even have mine with me (I like to leave my phone at home just wear my watch on date nights with the wife for example).

As a result, I always ask for physical menus, and 99% of restaurants are happy to give them to me.

I really hate paying with waiter. I have to wait for waiter to come to table and call for bill, wait for the bill to come, wait for waiter to pick up bill and card, wait for waiter to get my card back and then sign. It’s so damn long process. I really love to have the bill ready anytime and pay with my phone or a kiosk on the table and just leave.

I had a look for startups working on this - not just QR codes and nice looking vertically scrolling menus (rather than paper-formatted PDFs) but analytics, realtime updates etc.

Found these guys: https://smartermenu.co.uk/ - no affiliation. It just seems like what I'd build.

At my local watering hole, I love the new post-COVID ordering process. You scan the QR code, place your order on their website and they bring it straight to your table. IMO as someone who has been a server, it's better for the servers too because they don't have to take orders from customers (the most painful part of the process).

We've just come out of a period in Tokyo where alcohol wasn't allowed to be served. I visited a few restaurants during that time with QR code menus and none of them were updated to reflect that fact. I'm not sure why that was but if they're not easy to update there's no real benefit to them over traditional menus.

I like QR codes, and ordering via phone. You don't have to wait around for the waiter to bring the menu, take your order, take your payment. Don't have to touch a menu that hasn't been disinfected, or is out of date.

They do need to be properly implemented however. That is maybe more a business opportunity than an inconvenience.

I love QR codes. I love the idea of pointing my phone at a QR code and having something open up.

I hate how using a QR code actually goes. Unlock my phone. Open the camera app. Swipe to the photo mode in which QR codes work. Aim at the QR code and awkwardly try to tap the hovering URL.

There's a "restaurant" near me that has app-only ordering (ios/android). There is no on-site kiosk either. It's one of those "dark kitchen" things (I guess) with no wait-staff. I don't get it, but I guess I'm too old to understand.

Took my grandparents out to lunch last week and they were literally incapable of using the QR codes. Technology has advanced to the point where they can't even read the menus at restaurants because they don't have smartphones.

Luckily restaurants have paper menus as backups.

IMO the way this implemented at Alpine Inn in Portola Valley using www.toasttab.com is amazing. Being able to sit down and just immediately fire off some drink orders and so on and then close out your tab without having to wait for staff to come around is fantastic.

“Bring back menus, QR code’s are terrible.”

Thank God somebody had the spine to say it. QR code implementation is a mess. I’ve had a terrible time when a phone is out of battery, poor reception, or buggy.

I hate relying on my phone for something as simple as a meal out. All seemed rather dystopian.

The QR codes are generally an upgrade from queue-to-order type places and a downgrade from human table service. So far I've not seen anywhere that did human table service go to QR codes yet, but maybe I haven't been getting out that much.

My preferred combo: QR code at the table for menu browsing. Order with a human. Then QR code on the bill to (optionally) pay on your phone, ideally with Apple Pay. But you have the option still to leave out your CC for a more leisurely payment flow.

One restaurant that I went to requires a QR code, you scan it and get a menu, have to choose everything you want to order, have to enter your personal details (name, phone, email, address) and card details.

Unfortunately the food is pretty good there.

One thing that is fantastic about digital menus is that you can search in them.

QR code should be to go menus. It looks stupid to sit there flipping through a 5-6 inch screen to identify what food or dish you're looking at.

My favorite method put the menu into the table with a glass top. Better than people touching.

Just another way to degrade service for the consumer while saving money on not needing as many wait staff.

Its infurating, they have no way to modify an order or to have your waiter actually know what the fuck you're ordering.

In almost all cases you can ask for a paper menu if the QR code isn't working for you. I once went to a place where the QR menu worked for everyone but me. They gave me a paper menu and it was no big deal.

Regarding the "cashless trend": Isn't this technically illegal in the United States? That is to say, all businesses are obligated to accept U.S. currency as payment, which includes cash.

> Isn't this technically illegal in the United States?

Nope.

> That is to say, all businesses are obligated to accept U.S. currency as payment

No, they aren't. If there is a preexisting debt, the “legal tender” status of currency has some effect especially if there isn't a contracted-for form of payment, but many businesses operate payment-first with no debt created, and those that don’t tend to contractually specify forms of payment.

I have never seen such a restaurant and if I did I would leave immediately.

QR code’s are awesome. No greasy menu to hold, up to date availability, can see more details and better pictures for each item, and order without waiting for someone to show up at the table.

I wonder if anyone is printing unique QR codes for each set of diners so that they can track engagement more deeply. Or “scan this code to flag the waiter”.

At all the places I've seen doing this, they have a unique QR code for each table.

One plus for restaurants seems to be they can make you pay prior to, rather than after, your meal.

I'm a bit worried this practice will live past COVID simply because of this.

It is trivial to get people to pay for their meal before eating. In Australia it's very common in some kinds of place, in a way that I understand confuses some tourists.

The reason these QR codes would last is because of the telemetry and tracking they will enable.

Are there good examples of QR-code menus out there? I could see something like adding i18n being really nice for people that don't speak English.

This is just the same old “phones are destroying our society and I’m better than other people because I avoid them” article with a pandemic spin.

Yes. Experienced this for the first time just a couple days ago. Couldn't get the damn thing to work. Bunch of BS. I just want a dang menu.

I think it's best to offer both

Restaurants can offer QR menu to those who like them AND have more time to pay attention to those who don't.

What will actually happen is QR code menu experiences will get better, and paper menus will ... stay stagnant. A tale as old as time

That's great! As other commenters here have mentioned an online menu accessed by a QR code can have lots of extra features: multiple languages, filters for gluten/nuts/etc.

Meanwhile since I, speaking the local language and not having special dietary needs, want to look at a paper menu while my fone stays in my pocket.

I don't think anyone is actually arguing against having the QR/online menu. That's a great thing. What we're complaining about here is that restaurants have taken away the IRL menu.

Have you actually been to anywhere that has refused to give you a paper menu? Everywhere I’ve been lately has either clearly had a stack of menus up front that you can grab on the way to your table or the waitstaff has given us (typically fewer than are in our party) paper menus. Typically one or two of us will use the paper menu and the rest will use the digital menu.

Payment by QR on the receipt, however, is absolutely fantastic. A place near me uses Toast and it just opens an app clip, has me review my receipt, touch Apple Pay, and I’m done. I’ve always felt uncomfortable giving my server full access to my debit card details just to pay for a meal.

What does that even mean? Paper menus don't need to change, they work perfectly fine as they are.

I greatly prefer the QR codes and don't really experience issues with them too often. Much better than germ encrusted menus.

Last weekend a much older couple (late 70s) sat at a table next to me and the QR code menu was a big accessibility fail for them.

Is it weird that I haven't been inside a restaurant in nearly 18 months and have no idea this change even occured?

I'm slightly surprised that App Clips, Instant Apps, and NFC haven't taken off more in this space.

I would guess because they're significantly more work. There's a good chance the restaurant already had an online menu pre-pandemic; printing off a few QR codes that point to that URL is five minutes work vs. hiring a developer for who knows how long.

I love QR code menus because I'm not forced to touch a menu that 100 people before me have touched.

> Have you gone to a restaurant with your boomer parents during the pandemic?

Have you gone to a restaurant with your boomer parents before the pandemic? They still pull out their phone to use the flashlight or even take photos of the menu so they can zoom in.

This piece is bizarre in that they say they don't like something, give a BUNCH of reasons why other people might like it, then just dismiss it entirely because they don't like it.

Its a shame we cant simply condense the entire menu into a QR code as opposed to a link.

We could talk about why all day long but I want to make this fact super clear to any restaurant workers/owners: If you ask me to get my fone out of my pocket then I leave and give my business to your competition. Literally all it takes is a menu printout taped to a wall and you can keep my business. Make it happen.

Can we make these NFC stickers as well at least? Seems like that would work far better.

The best solution — pandemic or no pandemic — is a tablet at the table that you can use to order directly and also works as POS. Unfortunately, it's seen as low status so unlikely to be widely adopted. The fact that waitering uses a push model vs a pull model is insane.

Any time I've ever seen a tablet at the table, it's been used to push annoying ads at me trying to upsell shit. No, I don't want to add a wicked bloomin' onion or a Chocolato(tm) margarita. I don't need a flashing squawk box bothering me while I'm trying to have dinner, thanks. While I'm sure you could design a table tablet that didn't do that, it's obviously too tempting for them to do it.

Hey so in any case if someonw or you yourself is struggling to understand how to scan a qr code on their phone, always point them to my mini tiny product called https://scan.lol

IMHO it should be like this: Read QR code next to dish. It executes order for dish, and subtracts set amount of Bitcoin (perhaps with a confirmation so you're not scammed).

It also automatically files your income tax... (what a stupid law the US Gov. made when they decided to not consider crypto as currencies)

I also want the menu card back. Does a digital menu card something better? Digitalization for digitalization.

In-flight magazines and newspapers are not spreading Covid-19, neither does cash. But unvaccinated people do and people which doesn't use soap and water spread literally anything.

when all you have is a QR code ...

This is one subtle reason I love Boomers. They don’t want to deal with this sort of stuff and businesses have no choice (for now) to cater to them, which means annoyances from tech being unnecessarily inserted into a process are almost always bypassable simply by asking politely.

I’ve yet to be forced to use a QR code menu. I have sometimes had the alternative be looking at a large menu board over having a menu card in my hands, but even many restaurants will happily hand you a menu card on request. That said, given the circumstances I haven’t left a 50 mile radius of my house, so it’s possible it’s different elsewhere.

If you go to a restaurant with boomers it's a huge annoyance. Their older phones can't read qr codes.

Spray paint over the QR codes.

Entire article is like a joke

Said no one ever

I’ll say it. Bring back menus, QR code’s are terrible. You already printed this goofy thing why not just print the menu so I don’t have to dick around with some PDF on my phone.

Perfect example of a solution looking for a problem

Yes, we should just add more avoidable surfaces of contact which do not get cleaned as often as utensils, thanks to your big brain right?

Wash your hands before the food is served, it's super common and recommended even in the pre-covid times.

If you're touching your phone right before eating you DEFINITELY want to wash your hands. Think about where your phone usually sits, tightly pressed against your body absorbing all the sweat and detritus and bacteria on your person. Think of the last time you actually washed or sanitized your phone too...

Keys as well, makes me puke

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