The Restaurant Industry’s Worst Idea: QR Code Menus
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- No extra app. People scan the QR in WeChat (everybody has it) on the table, it will call a mini-app dynamically (somewhat similar to React Native but interpreted in WeChat).
- You are putting orders directly.
- You are paying within WeChat as well so it's seamless.
- The app is smooth because almost every restaurant is using the takeout giant Meituan's mini-app.
- Almost every single restaurants in China is tech savvy enough to use those systems because it's already a take-out centered society. Restaurants not leveraging these systems have virtually zero chance to survive the competition.
- You don't have to wait for anything or talk to anybody in the whole process.
The problems people mentioned in this thread:
- Minorities, people without smart phone or those are less tech savvy, are left behind.
- The walled garden and monopolies and such.
These problems are real, but it's probably not the QR menu to blame, because it's a far greater problem - in China, you are not allow to go anywhere without WeChat and scanning QR code due to those draconian regulations.
And if you don't have a smartphone, you can still just talk to the staff and order with them.
I like that this lets restaurants improve their labour productivity and lower their labour costs. It's hard to run a profitable restaurant.
> I just had lunch at a QR based restaurant here and it was a bit painful.
Interesting, which one? So far I didn't have too much trouble. But I can easily believe that there are many that don't work so well.
For the menu no app is needed, the places I go always open a web page menu(provided by a service specialising in this particular niche).
The payment could be completed through things like Apple Pay, per table basis. So you scan a QR code, it instantly opens a session for you and you can start ordering things and once you are done you close the session by paying through some payment processor.
Also, the technology to open apps with temporary sessions without installing the app exist both on iOS and Android but for some reason it never got popular.
It is my custom to withold payment for a restaurant meal until I've finished eating it and am ready to leave.
Also can't find any proof that they are still a thing... except for this[2] sketchy looking app that has 1 billion+ downloads, offered by "Google Play Store"
[1] https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7683278
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant/over...
Now renamed to Google Play Instant, but still ok for apps (I think?)
Not a great experience.
I was prompted with one of those App Clip interfaces, double-clicked to approve the Apple Pay, and done.
It was such a nice experience, no nagging prompts forcing me to download some crappy App. Just a simple clean, Apple Pay checkout.
Note I agree with TFA about QR menus. But this level of phone integration was the perfect amount on top of a traditional dining experience.
Went to several restaurants, took the train, stayed at a hotel. I didn't have to use my phone even once for anything.
As a tourist, the only adjustment I had to make was how comfortable things were and polite people were.
I paid for restaurants using credit cards directly to payment terminals.
I found the whole experience very easy and enjoyed how much I could handle on my phone.
It was the most comfortable Python training I ever gave.
What I don't understand is if you're just going to order off an app, what's the point of even going to the restaurant in the first place? That no-human-contact experience already exists in delivery apps, so why bother leaving your home or office if when you go out you just end up with the exact same experience? It's not like most of these restaurants are snazzy KTVs or tea houses where you get a private room and bottle service, they're just bog-standard food court style restaurants with hard chairs and dirty floors. You could just as easily order online and eat the food on a park bench. To me the whole thing just came across as inconvenient at best and actively destructive of local communities and their social restaurant culture at worst.
I don't expect a restaurant owner to entertain me, but I do expect them to be able to tell me what is in a dish, suggest a suitable equivalent if the restaurant doesn't have exactly what I'm looking for, tell me what's good or fresh that day or bring me something with more or less spicy depending on my preference. Any of these very short and simple interactions about exactly the product they are selling are much easier to have in person than trying to express every possible branch of a back-and-forth conversation in a tiny text box on your phone - and that's assuming there even is a text box.
I've walked out of several restaurants where they had real humans "serving" who either were completely ignorant about the food they had on offer or too lazy to bother engaging with a potential customer. "Just check the app." (Which doesn't have the answers.) What's the point, then? If all you care about is talking to your friends and not getting restaurant service, then just order online from a delivery service and enjoy your meal with friends in the park, in a square, in your office kitchen, in a hotel room, at home, wherever.
And please don't think I'm asking for American style "service" where you practically have servers begging you for tips every 2 seconds. There is a comfortable middle ground, and pretty much every small restaurant and da pai dang in China does it perfectly fine without a QR code menu.
It’s not like this at all. Servers don’t talk about tips or beg for them. You just tip at the end of the meal, whatever amount you want.
I hate that it's impolite to wave waiters over as well though. That would make the whole process a lot easier.
Depends where you are. In a lot of restaurants in Singapore, not only do you have to wave at waiters, you have to go to extremes to get their attention.
I, on the other hand, am content with waiting for the food if it takes too long and don't need any special service and would prefer to leave the (societally required) minimum tip of 10%.
Tipping is a terrible system I would prefer we dispensed with, but abusing the very poorly paid people enmeshed in the system is unkind, if you can afford to eat in US restaurants.
All this is beside the point that I don't eat outside in general. I prefer take out so I tip only rarely.
Also, waiters can be helpful, and friendly even when there's no paper menus. In my current city most restaurants are QR-enabled, and they serve food as nicely (or not) as paper-based. Absolutely the same experience except how you looking into menu. I just stopped noticing the difference.
EDIT: Maybe important note that I'm neither in US, nor an EU country.
Restaurant business is one of the rare where "free market" is really fully functional, and market will quickly self-regulate and award the good ideas, and punish the bad ones.
If your guess was right then the restaurants without it would loose the customers, and niche restaurants with the "human experience" would start popping out attracting those unsatisfied customers. Since this is not happening in China (yet?), then perhaps it's about the difference in the culture and your bet is wrong?
But in the Netherlands nobody tips so it is not exactly a very desirable job. Restaurants have to literally close because they can't find staff. Automation is the only possible future for the industry whether people want it or not.
Most do not.
I just moved to the Netherlands and have no qualms with the service in most restaurants. At least in my region (Brabant/Limburg) everyone is very nice. If I had to complain about anything, it would be sitting for 20 minutes after the party is finished eating, waiting for someone to clear the table. The service has been excellent and I enjoy paying the price on the receipt with zero surprises!
It's also why the whole concept of QR-code menus is antithetical to my idea of a good restaurant: if you're dining out, you're doing it to enjoy the company you're in. Having everyone at the table space out into their private phone world is not my idea of a nice evening.
I didn't come to a restaurant to fiddle with my phone for 5 to 10 minutes
> You don't have talk to anybody in the whole process.
That's a negative not a positive.
You cannot have the whole menu in front of you, you have to scroll and change sections. If it's cold, you can't order without talking your gloves off, if it's sunny, you better have a very bright phone or the menu will be unreadable.
As everything in China, you cannot pay without being electronically tracked, and you can't give a tip without going through a system that will likely take a cut. I will refrain to reach the Godwin point here since I assume it's been debated ad nausaum.
And of course, if something is not on the menu, you can't order it.
As usually with systems that are 100% digital, it gives you zero margin of maneuver outside of the happy path.
I don't want every restaurant to turn into a Mac Donald. If I want Mac Donald's, I go there.
It might be cultural, but I can count on a single hand the number of times I went to a restaurant and the interaction with the waiter/waitress improved the overall experience.
Or it might be personal.
... That's how it works right? The menu shows what they are offering and then you pay them. Why would you expect things not in the menu?
In Australia the food culture is you can customize almost anything on the menu and customers expect to be able to pretty much choose whatever combination they want as long as you have the ingredient and they can pay for it.
In France, a menu may not contain something you can eat, but some restaurants will create a full dish for you on the spot. It's very common restaurants with a Michelin star for example: as a veggie and foodie, I get regularly this treatment since french cuisine is very centered on meat. Some restaurants have the menu changing every day (I ate in one this week) depending of the farmer's market. The waiter just let you what's available. I know of at least one restaurant with no menu: you express a theme, and the chief will try to invent something matching it.
In Thailand, there was a restaurant were I used to go that had a regular menu for tourists with high margin meals, and a secret menu for regular customers that was actually good.
In Mali and Argentina, some restaurant menus are fake. You can't order most items, while there are items that you can get pretty much everywhere (riz au gras, pollo a la milanesca) even if it's not in there.
Now, it's tempting to decide that one path is optimum and shape society to only provide it. However, you kill diversity, margin of security, innovation, charm, and so on.
Don't get me wrong. Making the happy path the easiest and proffered way is OK. Offering a digital menu and payment system as a main option is great.
But making alternatives close to impossible is, at best, a good way to end up with with a bland life, and at worse, will create a dangerously inflexible and intolerant system.
It's why we should keep cash, paper forms and phone support despite the automated main experience been more efficient when all goes well.
How's that work?
After the 10th item on the menu not being available, you start to understand that the menu is more like a checkbox a restaurant must have to appear worthy of the name, rather than an actual useful object.
Not all restaurants are like that in Bamako of course.
But it's a great fun to take new comers to diner, and let them be puzzled for a while until reality sink in. I still remember my first time, my colleague looking at me ordering ice cream with eyes saying "oh, sweety...".
I’m sure there’s places that won’t let you order off menu. I wonder whether QR menus increases the number of them, though.
> - Minorities, people without smart phone or those are less tech savvy, are left behind.
I really do not understand how this isn't racist. Do they literally block you from using it if you aren't the major ethnic group?
My MVP solves quite a few of the grumbles people mention, and other grumbles either dictate the sort of venues that shouldn't adopt this tech, or show why this tech should always be as well as traditional service not "instead of". (There are also some grumbles that require more development to iron out)
Stuff my MVP does that solve grumbles mentioned in this thread: - simple URL format means you can use the URL rather than scan a QR code. If the restaurant name is long, a shorter version of the name should be used for good UX. I see QR codes that point to those URLs, as a good and easy option to provide for those people who now expect a QR code, but not the main way to access the menu. - web based means no need to install an app (I have also met some of the basic requirements for a "Progressive Web App" so some browsers will let you save it to your device once you are on the website if you want) - I keep file-sizes low, and put thought and effort into making it load and continue functioning smoothly even over slow and patchy internet connections. There are some things I could do to improve performance and smoothness on poor connections, particularly during building up your order, but it was easy to make it so that you can browse a menu to your hearts content even if your connection drops completely right after page load. Right now data for entire menu comes over at page load as JSON (that was created when restaurant last changed their menu), all UI up to placing order is handled in one page via client side JS, then as you add items to your order ajax calls add those items to a WooCommerce cart and tapping order sends you to a WordPress/WooCommerce checkout screen. Extra dev time to make a buffered version of that system, would get the connection need down to just the pageload and checkout/pay, but with the basic setup I have right now there is also need for a connection each time you add an item. The MVP setup would also require restaurants to have their woocommerce orders page up on some device behind the bar, which is not a great UI for their needs - so a "full" version of the web-app would need a custom page, and only use WooCommerce as a back-end if that made sense for that restaurant.
Keep a few backup printouts for those who need them (like your phone gets no signal), but otherwise it's a fantastic step forwards. Goodbye to grimy wasteful printouts.
Plus the bonus of never having to experience "oh sorry we're out of that" if they update the menus dynamically is fantastic.
If I recall correctly before Covid Applebees had some weird off-brand tablet thing on the table that looked like you could badly order via it, but mainly what it did was not work for playing some horrible Android game.
I suppose it could be used as a projectile.
The fun fact was that the waiter actually gave us paper menus when sitting us, without even asking, though they also introduced the gizmo.
I actually found that quite nice, since they had a wide selection of beers and there was a beer-selection app that would go in the details of each beer and allowed us to easily choose the kind we wanted.
In Santiago, Chile I was handed waiter’s phone with a menu from some local takeout when I informed them that I can’t read their menu hosted via QR since i don’t have data.
In South America it’s unfortunately popular to just have QR leading you to a huge PDF hosted somewhere in US to read a menu. Even in places that barely have internet like in the mountains… And more often than not they don’t have paper backups.
And then you keep scrolling back and forth on your iPhone trying to read them.
Bonus points if you put the pdf in an iFrame in a site that’s off the bootstrap template but they forgot to include the js file so it zooms the hamburger button instead of the pdf when you pinch and refreshes the page when you jerk it too much.
It’s remarkable how particular non-IT industries attract personalities that are more or less technically averse than others. Arts and media, retail, building contractors: generally quite competent. Lawyers, medical: usually pretty bad.
Restauranteurs: the most technically inept grandparent you’ve ever encountered, the one who insists that if they ever touch a mouse it will catch on fire, and then somehow proves it
lol, somehow so true.
I remember helping an older relative. They said they needed my help ASAP because Dish network was coming because they deleted their account. Couldn't get any details. Eventually saw they simply deleted an email about their bill.
Only sorta related but I wonder why it seems so hard for some to adjust while others do just fine. It seems like it would make sense that "email is just like real mail, its just on a screen." Maybe the "infinite options" scare them a bit?
When I was a teen in the nineties, I was the go-to guy in the neighborhood for fixing computers (beats mowing lawns). One trick I figured out was, I could demonstrate something like plug in a RAM chip or CD-ROM drive, take the parts back out, and then tell them to do it.
Even though their problems were invariably software-driven (fcking windows), just having that hands-on experience — not much different from changing your oil — would usually be all it took. The fear would be gone.
It's way better now, but for a long time I would go to woodworking sites (before it was trendy), and if you got much past GeoCities level sites it was almost a miracle.
Edit: Downvotes? For simply sharing my conflicting experience? Okay.
And yet it's almost guaranteed that your phone has far more germs and bacteria on it than those menus
Also... I can imagine why it could be reasonable to assume my phone might have the same number of germs as the menu... but how on earth do you guarantee it has far more?
No, more likely it has particles of feces. Bon appetit!
Until it's the prices that are dynamically updated.
Soon enough they'll use the information collected from your device to look up your income level, how often you've visited in the past, what kinds of things you're most likely to order, etc and use that data to set a price for your menu alone and suddenly you're paying more than the person next to you who is ordering the same thing.
>when they're printing hundreds of fresh menus a day
They change the menu every day? Around here the menus are commonly placed in a book alike folder or the least they will have a plastic slip. As for waste the online part (with datacenters and all) would be more wasteful/less green.
>Plus the bonus of never having to experience "oh sorry we're out of that" if they update the menus dynamically is fantastic.
So they need to link the kitchen to the menu system in real time. That feels unliklely - most of the menus would mostly static web (or worse pdf) interfaces, and an order button.
You say that like it's a given, but why? Products that can dynamically update the menu when something is out of stock with a couple of touches from FOH staff already exist. It's not exactly complex.
> I don't quite see how I could customize any order with a web interface, realistically (food intolerances).
This is harder, but that's why I don't think you can replace all your staff with a web interface - you still need a human in the loop to ask about important things like this.
Does that ever happen in the US? 90% of the menus I've seen via QR codes, and more generally online, are out of date. Often by months. I've gotten "sorry we're out ofthat" just as often with the new tech as with the old. I guess it's great that restaurateurs elsewhere get this right - most of the positive comments seem to be from Europe - but for the OP and a significant percentage of HN readers that's clearly not the case.
The hostess is supposed to seat you with them
However, I just experienced a QR code check for the first time. That was really nice .. I scanned the QR code with my iPhone, it downloaded the Toast "app clip", which allowed me to pay the bill with Apple Pay. It was totally seamless and far better than handing my credit card to a server to get lost or cloned.
In most countries I've been the waiter brings the PoS terminal to you and you pay at the table.
We've had this in America for over a decade at big chain suburban restaurants like Ruby Tuesday's and Applebees.
Ah, you edited your response. Mine still is valid I guess.
Must have been the Applebees that you went to. I went to one in 2014 that brought the POS to the table. I remember the year because it was in a state that I've only been to once, for a business trip.
I don’t have a computer screen in my car for the same reason. Software engineers tend to produce shit tier user experiences. (Speaking as one)
Before credit cards were handled electronically the server used to have to use one of these to make a carbon paper imprint of your card: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_imprinter
While they a weren’t _huge_ they weren’t very easy to bring to the table and use, so I imagine we just got used to the experience of the server running off with our card. In wasn’t until the pandemic that I noticed most restaurants using handheld terminals.
1. We adopted chip cards quite late, so a lot of legacy hardware still exists - including payment terminals built into restaurant point of sale machines with a magnetic strip reader, instead of a separate card terminal.
2. Wireless card terminals are not common in the US, outside of things like Square or Toast readers. Readers are usually hardwired to the POS and aren't able to be "undocked" and carried around.
3. Outside of contactless, signatures are still usually required, and people are still used to having the receipt printer at the host stand alongside the terminal, instead of built into the card reader.
This is all slowly changing, and I honestly chock a lot of it up to stuff like smartphone payments (remember, we got Apple Pay before having contactless embedded in the majority of cards!) and smartphone-based POS systems like Square.
Credit cards have no PIN in the US (and debit cards can usually be used without one as well), which makes this approach possible in the first place, and the tipping culture that can make it desirable to get a quiet moment with the check to figure out amounts.
Practically, it also means that even larger restaurants usually only need very few POS terminals at a central location, rather than one per waiter, requiring wireless infrastructure in larger restaurants etc.
This is changing very fast, though – I‘m seeing both combined order and payment handheld devices (that support tap-to-pay, i.e. also Apple Pay) as well as the QR payment solution in more and more places.
Just want to correct this idea which has been repeated several times on this topic: You only need 3 or 4 for a larger restaurant. The entire restaurant does not pay simultaneously.
When you (the server) are done with them you just put them back in a charging dock or some other communal space.
It makes a lot of sense, in my view: Handling orders tickets digitally is probably incredibl useful for the kitchen (especially considering a mix of dine-in and takeout orders).
From there, it‘s only a small (ok, not really small because PCI-DSS, but at least possible) step to also having these things do payments.
[0]: The European Banking Authority (EBA) calls on traders to make use of the exemption for strong customer authentication up to 50 € as allowed under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/389.
For this reason alone, you do need a PIN pad at every terminal.
The money on the line with handing your card to the server is not comically small. They can max out your credit card with whatever charges they want. They don't even need to go through their POS system, as they can charge your card with any online retailer.
It’s a common comment from Americans, but is misleading at the very least.
I have never even heard of a fraudulent transaction that was not reversed almost immediately, and I have been living in 3 EU countries (well, one of them ex-EU now). The procedure is: call the bank, notify them, they suspend the card and send you a new one (usually for free once a year or so, for about €20 after that). Usually they call you before you notice it; they are very good at spotting this.
It’s the same thing for card-present fraud: you have some time to declare your card lost or stolen, and all the transactions after the time you lost it are reversed. Your liability is €50 for the transactions that happened before you called them, and nothing afterwards.
I am willing to believe that consumer protection is better in the US for some specific aspects, but I am yet to see relevant examples.
My first experience was with a bog standard Visa debit card at a French bank 10 years ago (card not present; someone apparently used my card at an ATM in Singapore to withdraw €1200 total; the bank notified me and refunded the first €500 withdrawal that went through).
My second experience was at a British bank just before Brexit (standard Visa debit card as well). I had lost my card without realising it. I called my bank when I found out and they went through the recent history to check every transaction. It turned out someone bought something with the card (can’t remember whether it was online or contactless; a small sum regardless) and that was refunded.
The regulations are very consumer friendly, even for debit cards, which everybody uses. And while they do indeed change with time, so far it has been in the direction of better consumers protections.
I don’t claim that Europe is better or anything like that, just that “the consumer is liable for frauds with their card” is wrong. IIRC, their liability is €50 maximum (and €0 in some countries) for transactions that happened before the bank was notified, and €0 after. Beyond that, the onus is on the bank to demonstrate negligence or fraud on the consumer’s part. In that case of course the consumers is liable and gets a fine at the very least.
To be clear, I neither said that not intended to imply that, so I find it a little questionable that you placed it in quotes. I think the protections are more or less fine, but seem to vary more and aren't as clear-cut for zero liability as I've found in the US, but I'm sure this varies a lot by country anyway. In any case, I've lived in multiple European countries for years now, so my experience is not solely from the US.
I’ve seen here waiters asking for the pin, writing it down on a piece of paper, and taking the card back to the POS terminal.
Then the waiter returns with the machine, enters the total (including tip) - you touch your card to the machine (and if the amount is high enough enter a pin.)
The waiter does not handle the card.
There is no awkwardness at all.
I recently joined a newly-arrived US friend at a restaurant, and he paid, but clearly didn't understand the edit-the-bill process, so we tipped in cash then gave quick education.
It's a system that works well, is effecient and secure. Overall you stay in control of your card and your card is only processed once.
The machine just asks for a tip and lets you put a % or $ amount in, usually with a suggested amount. I'm not sure what difference you perceive here between writing it on a piece of paper and entering it on a terminal.
I've seen systems where you input the final sum you want to pay, and systems where you can input the tip separately.
The experience I dislike goes like this: The server gives you the hand-held terminal and then stands watching you, tapping his/her foot impatiently, while you hurriedly verify the check, then calculate a tip amount under the server's scrutiny. I guess I'm a wimp. With the server's eyes on me, I feel the pressure to tip generously, no matter how poor the service or the overall experience.
By contrast, I find the traditional system, where the server would drop off the paper check for you to examine on your own time, to be private, un-rushed, and less prone to error.
After three decades of paying my restaurant checks without a POS terminal, I've never encountered any monkey business during the brief time the server is in possession of my credit card. Is "restaurant credit-card fraud" really a thing?
And than in 10 minutes waiter arrive with hand held POS.
No idea if there is non-negligible fraud in the form of staff copying down the card number and security code for online payments fraud, though.
QR code menus 99% of the time just link to the website menu (which existed before the QR code for menus became popular, and is still wack). And it usually sucks just as much as it did before.
QR for a check is a beauty. Exact same experience as yours, there is a local restaurant that did it, and I was prepared for the worst. But I scanned the code, it did the Toast app clip, and the entire process was extremely smooth. I went to that restaurant multiple times since then, and I would be lying if I said that the "qr to pay the check using the app clip" didn't at least partially contribute to that.
- You need good signal or connect to wi-fi to pay (not a given in many restaurants)
- The restaurant can get your email address by default when paying with Apple Pay
- Much slower than just tapping my card or phone on the POS
Compared to the waiter walking away with my card, handing me a receipt to sign and top to fill in, I kind of understand the trad-off – but at-the-table POS solutions have existed for many years now.
Ironically, many of the QR payment places I‘ve been to actually have these as well.
I get that jumping from a central POS to a device per waiter is an investment – but why switch to QR codes if all your staff is already equipped with a strictly superior solution?
That’s a big if in the US.
The ones I‘ve seen that have switched to QR payments had mobile POSes before.
Can you provide any evidence of this?
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_pay_on_the_w...
Customers can ultimately set whatever they want as an email address there, and it's not verified in any way by Apple before completing the payment, but defaults matter: The default on my phone was my real email address from my contact card, and I did not even notice that it was preselected in the payment sheet until I got a confirmation email by the checkout system.
In an online payment context, this makes total sense to me: The merchant needs some way to identify the buyer even just for digital goods, after all. But it came very unexpected for me in a restaurant context, where I know that Apple Pay (via tap and pay) normally does not even reveal my name.
I really hope that Apple realizes the pretty big privacy gap here and starts integrating their email relay service into Apple Pay sooner rather than later, as well as making it possible to override required fields in some way.
I wish it was built into the AOSP camera app, but it's not.
In Poland we have Blik[1] for that, it's a national, standard payment process. Works with any bank, in any restaurant, no need to download an app.
Or if the staff lose interest and you want to leave and keep asking for the bill (seems to happen if you don't order alcohol)
In the civilised world, we don’t do that. Instead, the waiter brings a terminal to the table, or if they don’t have any, we go pay at the desk. Nobody gives their card to anyone. That is a problem with much better solutions than online-only menus.
If there was a way to avoid that last step, it would probably save restaurants a lot of time. Guests could leave sooner as they wouldn’t have to wait around for payment.
Sure, you could pay on the way out, but that's often painful. Many others are having the same idea, so now you have to wait around, lining up in a place that wasn't designed for people to wait around, bothering waiters who need to run around serving clients. It's usually less of a hassle to just wait around at the table for the waiter to bring the terminal to you.
My pet peeve with the terminal at the table thing is that, despite card payment being extremely common in my area, the waiter will not bring a terminal over when you ask for the check, you'll have to wait some more.
I was expecting a wireless terminal, or at least a "come to the cash when you're ready". Wireless units were probably at 75% adoption in early 2020, and went to 100% when things started to reopen as a (perceived at least) way to minimize intermingling among patrons. When I mentioned I was surprised the credit card wasn't wireless (and also did tipping on paper, not in the terminal), the waitress said she'd never even seen a wireless terminal before!
Growing up, tech in Canada always seemed to lag behind the US, and it's weird to see it the other way around.
Yeah, that’s a nice positive aspect. Personally, I don’t think it out-weights the negative ones. Too many bad experiences with badly designed digital menus.
> Sure, if you have a special case you can still ask, but for most people it's just like "OK going to give the money now".
My experience (around here, so obviously YMMV) is that waiters don’t know how to handle exceptions in these restaurants. When you have to escalate to the manager just because you have issues with the menu and the waiter hasn’t been trained properly (of course they haven’t: training costs money), it removes any positive aspect.
> No needing a waiter to come run over to the cashier to deal with you on top of everyhting else
In these cases I just walk to the bar to pay and everything is fine. It is considered rude in some settings, but then these settings are also when waiting for the bill is not acceptable.
I was pretty shocked when I first went to America and they just took all of our cards into the back. Hilariously insecure but you can't say it wasn't more efficient.
App payment seems like a good solution.
Currently the only reasonable option seems to be for one person to pay and then split the bill on Monzo - that does work well but some people don't have Monzo still.
Laws have changed over the past 20 years, but the culture around how we treat cards has not.
Making customers pay upfront is a huge “we’re too cheap to pay for waiters so the customers have to do their jobs” warning sign. They are the kind of places where you’re expected to clean the table when you leave. Ok when all you need are calories quickly, but definitely not pleasant places.
Holy heck! People do still give their credit cards to strangers to dissapear with? I last saw that in the 90's (Europe).
It seems this is a "solution" to a problem that never existed in the first place.
Option 1: Everyone orders and pays independently. Website takes payment through all the usual options + Apple/Google pay. So long as the whole table orders within 5 minutes, all the orders come through at once.
Option 2: One person sets up a tab, which generates a QR code. The other guests scan that code instead of the one at the table. People can order their own food/drinks as above until the tab owner closes the tab. If you forget to close the tab it closes itself at the close of business.
It took me quite a while to work out who was checking on the QR code.
Just last night we were trying to order from a restaurant that uses a service called qrfy.com for their menu.
I assume from the URL that this service specializes in this. Despite that the UI is... poor.
The font is too small (probably fine for the 20 something designer that built it). That's not a biggy, but then someone decided to disable pinch zoom.
Being techy, I can show the others how to work around that by doing a screen shot, then looking at the result in the gallery, where zooming does work. That's a crap experience though, because I can only see one page at a time. I just want to browse a menu! And I need to do tech support to show others how to do Android screen grab (gorilla swipe from right to left).
All so very fucking ridiculous for something that could do easily be so much better.
Just track the paste operation and place a big red CHEATER banner on the username.
Also what can be disabled with javascript - can be enabled with javascript.
(I'm not really calling out HN here - its mobile experience is still better than most, although voting pretty much requires zoom)
The best way to do it was screw-to-zoom, where you draw a spiral to zoom in or out; righty-tighty to zoom in, lefty-loosey to zoom out. "Screw-to-zoom" is a bit gross for marketing, though. Maybe "spiral-in, spiral-out"?
On an iPhone you just tap an aA font icon in the URL bar and change the font size up or down from 100%.
While some restaurants have a waiter taking orders, others enforce ordering via the same webapp. I've almost always run into problems where the order process hangs, or doesn't go through correctly.
There's a specially nasty surprise on iOS devices. Sure you can use the built-in QR code scanner and it pops up a webapp where you take 10 minutes to struggle through everything.... and now you just want to check that message from your friend to see if he's on the way, quickly switch to your favourite messaging app and then.... anger at not being able to find where the heck your menu and ordering process disappeared, because you didn't know that you should have explicitly ordered your phone to open the page in safari.
And then you can have fun ordering the True Impossible orders, like using the McDonalds app to buy a cheeseburger with no cheese, no bun, no sauce, no onion, no pickle, and no meat.
Hopefully these restaurants will go extinct via natural selection. It takes so much longer to convince these broken portals to take your order. Which means the restaurant is losing money at peak times.
Yea completely annoying when you run into a qr code and it opens a menu. we try to encourage our restaurants to offer physical menus as a choice. We want people to use our app based ordering system because we put a lot of effort to make it convenient.
1. its not jsut a menu, you can browse and add food to your bill in real time and the waiter gets a push notification about it. its integrated with teh ticketing system so it really cuts down on wrong orders. what you see in the app is what the chef sees in the kitchen.
2 ordering between friends. we make it so you can invite and see a giant list with who ordered what in realtime.
3 hail the waiter from the app. with our system, the waiter gets a push notification if you hail them from a button in the app or add an item. no more awkwardly trying to get the waiter's by looking in their direction and locking eyes awkwardly like two grindr matches in a small midwestern city.
4. pay through the app. so far customers love it. they can simply pay and go instead of waiting for the waiter to bring the machine.
5 registering nor required, we saw that a lot of users were avoiding using the app simply because they didn't wan to register so we made special "lite versions" of our apps that load via instant app (android) or app clips (ios). Thls it sucks that it means we don't get to have a history of what the orders over time, we decided it was better that the system be as convenient as possible. hopefully other nice features like having your payment method stored so you can pay at table without pulling out your card gives people a reason to try the full fat experience
we're in 163 restaurants and growing in London so hopefully you be using us soon!
Edit: the number one thing users want in a restaurant ordering system is ease. I'm in a restaurant to relax, eat, and enjoy good company. The last thing I want to do is register for get another app (because none of the restaurants use the same one) and type in my payment details. Some of the things you mention do sound more convenient than the traditional paper menu and human waiter, but if I have to type in a credit card number or sign up for an account, I'd prefer the human.
In my opinion there is no better interface for communication than human-to-human speech. This is why butlers, waiters, and personal assistants exist, and also why natural-language AI is promising.
In my opinion we should aim to get screens out of our lives except when necessary and intentionally focused on a task (i.e. work) and maintain presence in the real world whenever we're doing anything else. This means leaning more on human language and less on screens.
I really dislike how often communication gets cut off because multiple participants are trying to get the attention of a waiter or the topic is uncomfortable to talk about with an unknown person over your shoulder.
Usually a pdf, and one that hasn't been updated in a couple of years.
Hum, what? Since when is looking people in the eye to catch their attention awkward?
A more honest take would be "This will grow our and our b2b customers bottom lines, at the expense of the consumer experience. Most consumers won't have a choice if we get enough of the market."
Honesty doesn't sell when you're a parasite.
You're not wrong here. the reality is that staff costs are going up and restaurants are happy to jump on technologies that let them do more with less. With our product, staff can be more efficient. We consider the experience of the waitstaff using our product to be a high priority and it shows when they are enthusiastic about pushing our solution to operations.
> at the expense of the consumer experience.
We're not forcing our system on anyone. We're doin our best to make it a better experience overall for the customers. There's a few restaurants that choose to have a QR code only experience but thats not something we push on them. Not saying we're perfect (god knows getting instant apps working has been the cause of a few sleepless nights) but we take customer feedback seriously and are aggressively improving our product to encourage them to use it to order. I personally don't want people using our app because they HAVE to but because its a superior experience.
> Honesty doesn't sell when you're a parasite.
You're entitled to your opinion. We provide a product that helps restaurants be more efficient with their resources and make less mistakes when it comes to ordering. our customers, (both restaurants and users of our ordering app) like it and thats what ultimately matters.
What I don't like, however, are:
• Full-screen ads that you need to scroll past, to get at the menu.
• Request/Requirement to sign up an account (even if less "in your face," it's still creepy as hell, because this crowd, especially, knows exactly what will happen to that data).
• Enticements to "download our app." I have stopped downloading these apps, because, in the best case, they are watered-down Web pages, and in the worst case, borderline malware (why does a menu app require all my contacts and pictures?).
• Awful information architecture, that makes it difficult to find what you need (with a paper menu, it's less than a second. With a phone menu, it can take ten seconds or more, and, on a couple of occasions, I never found something that I knew the restaurant had).
Phones aren't iPads. The systems frequently seem to have been designed for tablets, and often, the phone experience is a watered-down, "lesser" experience to a tablet.
I'm really big on end-user experience optimization (as opposed to app developer experience optimization), so I know that I'm a cranky customer.
Not that it should replace all dining experiences but wait staff free dining when ordering from a bar + kitchen is superior for these instances.
The ability to just get up an walk off without synchronous negotiation is a more relaxed dining experience, the ability to have people progressively join and leave your party is also fantastic and can facilitate an old school community dining hall experience.
There are a few UIs I like for mobile, many are quite poor though.
* I intentionally don't use my phone at restaurants. In fact, I often prefer to leave it in the car.
* In my area (rural America), a lot of businesses have really poor websites (noticeably worse than urban areas). Nearly all of the QR menus are down right terrible.
* There's a good chance some one thought it'd be great to have a bunch of collapsed sections and add a terrible animation. I need to manually expand each section and deal with the terrible animation repositioning the screen.
* For those less tech savvy businesses, they probably just uploaded a PDF of their menu. Bonus points if the menu is scanned in on their 15 year old printer/scanner combo.
* Finally, there's the group of restaurants that have changed menus but either (1) forget to update the website (2) accidentally have multiple, differing copies of the menu
Just print a few hundred pieces of paper, and your customers will tell your employees which listed items they want.
I went to another stall.
I like qr codes as an option.
It all varies by context of course, but I much prefer ordering uk/nz style - order at the bar, pay, grab drinks yourself, food gets delivered by waiter. Much faster, esp when you are getting a single cup of coffee.
It also feels awkward because you stimulate everyone to pick up their phone as soon as you come in. I'm still from the generation that considers that something too avoid :)
Always amusing when the menu is on QR but the wine list is a normal printed paper.
And the tide is turning, the waiter at a high-class joint we went to in another big city noticed some hesitation with the QR code and revealed normal menus.
Tbh, this is usually the least bad outcome with QR code menus since at least it's usually just the same as the physical one but on my screen (worse than physical, but not "badly designed JavaScript animation hell" worse) *
Luckily, most places would bring a physical menu when asked. One claimed they didn't have any, and seemingly made no effort to accommodate, so they just lost our business. At minimum, I don't think it's too much to ask for a single chalkboard or screen or something. Having nothing and demanding users scan QR codes is low effort.
It's compounded by the fact that I currently use a Unihertz Titan Pocket. Physical keyboard, but only a 3" screen.
I don't bring my phone with me everywhere I go. I don't want to. It's big, and awkward, and annoying.
When it works, it is mediocre at best. When it doesn't work, it's a pain in the ass. Plus it means you almost never see a server. Again, great if there are no hiccups, but awful when something goes wrong.
And the huge variety of UIs are awful. Maybe in 10 years when everyone lands on one UI that make sense, and there's an IPAD at the table, and servers come by to follow up... maybe then I'll be OK with it?
So do these banks issue you a phone if you don't have one? Does the government have a law that requires citizens to own a phone? What brand? What capabilities.
There are online-only banks in the US that are only accessed through a phone, but they are not the ONLY banks.
I think you are confusing a world that CAN be accessed vs. a world that MUST be accessed via phone.
you: (moves goalposts)
My banking and bill paying is basically online only. It's not obligatory but it's far, far more convenient online.
Debit cards still exist but they are being phased out slowly in favor of NFC.
To board transport I can still use a card but recharging it is easier via an app than by standing in line at a machine where I'd have to pay with a card or cash.
At work we often communicate via group chats. It's quicker and less intrusive than phoning or emailing. I don't love it but I'm accustomed.
To pay taxes or fines to report to the city that a tree branch fell to consult my property tax info or medical records or to get an appointment for minor surgery - it's all easiest or only possible online.
Online means via app on phone generally. Most of us don't carry around anything more expensive than a 150 euro Chinese phone.
> My banking and bill paying is basically online only. It's not obligatory but it's far, far more convenient online.
So, not a necessity.
> Debit cards still exist but they are being phased out slowly in favor of NFC.
Not a necessity (and I expect by "phased out" you mean you see them less).
> To board transport I can still use a card but recharging it is easier via an app than by standing in line at a machine where I'd have to pay with a card or cash.
Not a necessity.
> At work we often communicate via group chats. It's quicker and less intrusive than phoning or emailing. I don't love it but I'm accustomed.
I assume you have a work device and this is during work hours? If so, not a necessity.
> To pay taxes or fines to report to the city that a tree branch fell to consult my property tax info or medical records or to get an appointment for minor surgery - it's all easiest or only possible online.
Easiest = not a necessity.
You've just detailed things that _you_ find more convenient to do on your phone and that you are able (and encouraged) to do. But not one of them appears to require a phone, or - outside of your specific job - even internet.
First of, on Android, the camera doesn't magically scan the QR code. You have to download a separate QR code scanner app for that. My wife and my parents all have Android phones and have no idea what to do when they see a QR code like that. The waiter usually just says "point your camera to it" because apparently everyone in the world assumes you have an iPhone and that's how it works there. When it doesn't work the waiter now has to do tech support on a random person's phone.
Second, as others have said, the social aspect of looking at it together is totally lost. Which is quite big IMHO.
Third, scrolling through a PDF or a page on a tiny screen makes it much harder to grasp the entire menu quickly. On a paper menu, I often just jump around and get inspired by the various dishes. Randomly scrolling up/down/left/right on a tiny screen feel awful compared to just letting your eyes drift.
My vote is for a QR code and paper menus. Let the people decide what they like without excluding elderly or non-tech savvy people.
Also, if you are dining with someone who has a food allergy, then all the "convenience" of online menusgoes away when a waiver has to bring their book of allergens to the table and manually take the order anyway.
It's often the case in the UK that the mobile app/website in restaurants has full allergy information, including filters to only show items that match certain criteria.
Printed menus where I live (Seattle) tend to have the exact same info as the QR menus, which includes the allergen info. Which makes sense, because most of the time the QR menu is the exact same as the physical one (just printed out). And those that are not the same just have more info on the website, like full nutritional content and such.
The QR menu is just a PDF of the printed menu.
Which is silly because an online menu is an amazing opportunity to do extensive dietary restriction support. In fact, it's so accomodative to have a filter to narrow/highlight menu choices that I'm surprised restaurants haven't done that and also made "Paleo" and other diets part of it. Plus every single menu entry could have expansions to show exact ingredients, etc., for extra research.
Wow, they have book of allergens?
Is that with list of dushes from specific restoraunt? Or ith general reference book?
Never saw that in my country. I guess we don't use these. If you have allergy you are just screwed.
Some places will list the allergens directly on the menu, with symbols or footnotes. Less common is a separate menu showing only e.g. lactose free options -- I've seen this at nicer places in the UK.
Places like cafés and fast food where the menu is a blackboard or screen should have a book/file or similar. It is often just printed Word documents in a ringbinder, presumably prepared by the chef.
McDonald's example: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g18704... (just see the picture)
Ryanair in-flight menu example with symbols: https://www.foodsmatter.com/allergy_intolerance/management_t...
(Might _ua mean Ukraine? Then FWIW, I've seen this system in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland.)
Out of curiosity, what phones do you and your family use? Because my Android phone (a Pixel 4a) has never had any issues scanning QR codes by just pointing the camera at them.
Starting in Android 13, a QR code scanner is accessible from Quick Settings on all GMS devices. This QR code scanner is built into Google Play Services though so it's not available on AOSP builds.
I've never seen QR codes in restaurants in Silicon Valley.
I'm about 90% sure this used to work better on an older version of android.
Most Android phones do this automatically - and it's not too hard to write up a quick app for it to scan automatically when it detects a QR code.
> Second, as others have said, the social aspect of looking at it together is totally lost. Which is quite big IMHO.
My friends and I all browse together on our phones and we excitedly point out different menu items, that we can look at independently without having to cram together looking at a piece of paper. Otherwise I don't know how this is any different than having separate menus.
> Third, scrolling through a PDF or a page on a tiny screen makes it much harder to grasp the entire menu quickly. On a paper menu, I often just jump around and get inspired by the various dishes. Randomly scrolling up/down/left/right on a tiny screen feel awful compared to just letting your eyes drift.
Scrolling through a PDF / page has always been fine for my friends and I. I'm also not entirely sure why I would want my eyes to drift when actively looking for something to eat as well?
You just 'write up a quick app' in the middle of a restaurant?
On a more serious note, though, I wouldn't be much impressed with QR code menus. I usually have my 4G off, I don't trust random wifi networks, and I don't like smartphones as a form factor for any text over 500 characters.
You're joking, right? In case you forgot the context, "not too hard" is looking at a menu that's in front of you. Writing an app to make up for the absence of the menu is definitely too hard.
Not everyone makes $450,000 USD a year and can change phone every month, I am sorry.
You want to come in to my business and give me money? Upgrade your phone!
Then scroll through a 4" version of the 18" menu we scanned in and then threw away.
I’m not going to get into yet another platform flame war and I’m sure you have plenty of reasons why you selected your device and they’re valid. But if your post is about longevity and economics iPhone wins hands down.
And, as the parent noted, my 6s is still getting security updates; current is 15.7.1. I'd swear Apple is sneaking in some UI polishing too.
And if it can’t scan QR codes from the camera app, that’s purely because your carrier is withholding software updates from you. It’s built-in from Android 8.0 and Samsung supports the 2018 A8 up to Android 9.
I get the sentiment, but the ire is better directed at those preventing older/cheaper phones from doing what they’re capable of.
I have the OnePlus 10 Pro. I've looked through all of the menus and settings, there's nothing that seems to be QR code related? Maybe they've removed the feature?
"oneplus 10 pro qr": https://www.google.com/search?q=OnePlus+10+Pro+qr
In 30 seconds, I found that you can do it by using the Google Lens feature, which is a button to the left of your zoom button in your camera app. If you don't want to use that, you can use google lens directly.
But honestly, in 2022 it's kind of up to you to know how to scan a QR code, the same way you're expected to know how to type a domain name into a web browser. If someone has to teach you the first time then that's fine, there's a first time for everything, but the idea that there are people who haven't done it before isn't a reason to hold us back. And if you have a phone with a pre-2017 operating system or that otherwise doesn't support it in its native camera app, you can install an app for it.
But yes, places generally always have a backup option, whether a paper menu or tablet. I mean, people's cell phones run out of battery all the time. It's not just the elderly or non-tech-savvy ;)
Another is joining a Wifi network. I saw this at a couple of small hotels recently -- as well as giving the network name and password, there was a QR code. Scanning it prompted me something like "Do you want to join NiceViewHotel Wifi network? Yes/No" and was much quicker than typing in the key.
Who thinks those are good ideas?
For the record I have scanned exactly 0 QR codes in my life.
I have no idea whatsoever what caused you to dislike QR codes, but I kinda want to hear the story. Face Id, I can kinda see as a pin might be more secure.
I also see how these things are built. I see how the sausage is made. Sometimes, when you see how the sausage was made, it can sour you. Even if you maybe didn't see how that specific sausage was made. Also, always beware of what the sausage might get used for other than the "intended purpose".
I never understood the premise for QR codes. You're trying to send me to some URL, create an SMS w/ some pre-defined text, automatically follow someone on Twitter or whatever and a bunch of other things. Until I scan the code I have no idea what it will actually do. I don't generally trust something like that not to be used for nefarious purposes. We teach people to be careful what links they click on and such. Here we teach them the opposite. If someone sticks a QR code in front of your face, just scan it! Now you can say that no restaurant ever would send you to a URL that then exploits a flaw in your browser and that there are way easier ways to compromise a system. Fair enough. Doesn't mean I have to start using QR codes for things that worked perfectly well in a non-QR code world.
Now the GP also said that restaurant people tell you to "just point your camera to it". This would indicate that there's an always on camera scanning my surroundings constantly to figure out if there's a QR code there. Frankly if that was actually the case, that would be super creepy. That is why I would disable such a function right away. Even if it's "just happening locally". Sounds a bit like that whole "they only scan your device for inappropriate pictures locally, nothing to worry about". Now combine that w/ all the new rage in "e-health" where you don't have to go stand in line for hours to see a doctor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32560361 ("Google refuses to reinstate account after man took medical images of son’s groin").
This is exactly the kind of thing I am worried about w/ any of these "advances" in technology. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Why? I've literally never been in a situation where I've had to scan a QR code. I do mean never.
What benefit does a system like this provide when it's always clunkier than just having a physical object?
On an unrelated note, isn't this why all the scan-this-QR-code ads fall flat? Because it takes a lot of extra effort to actually "check out more info"?
[1] https://www.six-group.com/en/newsroom/media-releases/2020/20...
What is required is that you, when creating an invoice, provide the QR code for doing so.
Menus in restaurants are an exception. Those are better as physical objects.
And how is a QR code the best for sharing links in a presentation? Why would people want to look at what you linked during your presentation? And if it's afterwards they would need access to your presentation anyway, no? At that point a regular URL would do too.
The way it worked at my previous employer, you had the guest network SSID and password on the wall and then the QR code, so you didn't have to type them in. There was no difference in security, just convenience.
As for during the presentation: surprisingly often, if you are doing workshops.
As such I hate QR code menus. I'm with the boomers on this one. QR code menus are no better than touch screen menus to open the glove box.
Some time ago I had coffee with someone in a cafe that did the same thing. I never went back to that cafe again. We spent a full ten minutes of our ~hour time not talking to each other because we were too busy futzing with an awkward online ordering system.
There’s just no way for laypeople to evaluate the provenance of random QR codes. The restaurant industry often uses random third party sites for their menus, so even that is a poor signal.
EDIT: Adding second paragraph that was accidentally deleted before submission
> There's just no way for laypeople to evaluate the provenance of random QR codes.
Arguably, even seasoned veterans may have difficulty confirming the validity. Too often, it's a patchwork of random third parties before the order is completed.
> The restaurant industry often uses random third-party sites for their menus, so even that is a poor signal.
Which makes this all that worse, as it's contrary to all of the "verify" messaging we've been preaching from the security world.
[1] These emerged during/after lockdowns to minimise staff contact with diners, but have stuck around as there's an employment crisis whereby restaurants (and plenty of other businesses) can't find staff, so this reduces the need for staff to stand around waiting for you to place your order.
Imagine a vending machine in a remote area with no hardline data access, and it’s unreliable for the machine to access the phone network. If there’s a QR on the machine, and if the customer has a data signal, then payments can easily be processed by phone and return a code to complete the purchase.
A perp swaps the QR, sends customers to a plausible-looking payment site and steals their buck-and-a-quarter.
It’s fairly easily detected because that machine suddenly stops making money. The perp’s website and payment processing would be subject to subpoena. And this is wire fraud, so a federal crime in the US.
Sufficient risk / insufficient reward?
I hope it has caused people to start thinking about what could happen beyond the jokes.
QR codes should, generally, DIAF.
It's a fundamentally horrible experience and will definitely keep me from going back.
However, I would probably not go back to a place that had a terrifyingly horrible UI for ordering, either.
Honestly, as someone with young kids it's been an absolute dream. We can scan or tap as soon as we get to the table, one of us can quickly fire off some order for food and drinks for the kids, and more often than not things have arrived before we've finished unpacking the coloring books and other things to keep them occupied. At which point the adults can sit down and chat, which is usually the main reason we're out, and order at our leisure.
But you can also get someone at the table to place the order for everyone. Or often go and order at the bar (also something that you don't see too much in North America), or if its a restaurant grab a member of staff and order in a more classic way.
The average phone life before replacement is 2.5 years in North America [1] so you are somewhere between 2x and 4x outside the median: an outlier but not outrageously so.
1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphon...
It’s the same as loud music or other bad aspects of restaurants. Just because vast number of people like it doesn’t mean I have to as well.
We're just talking about QR codes that open up a PDF or HTML page that shows the menu. It's not online ordering.
I mean I've seen online ordering as an option at a couple of places that I thought was cool, but you didn't have to. Literally everywhere else I've been (in NYC) it's just been a static menu. Not tracking you.
But obviously no, I did the restaurant no favor. I financially deprived the restaurant of income, and the server unfortunately of a tip. And I tip big.
I don't owe the restaurant a visit. They do owe me an experience. If it begins with struggling with their QR menu system, I'm opting out for a variety of reasons.
And a struggle it is. First find the mode where QR results is something actionable (I have an older phone) Hopefully their WIFI is exceptional, and the password not onerous.
Then answer their marketing questions. Finally peer at a too-small menu you have to scroll through on a tiny screen with terrible pictures.
Find something interesting? How to share it with your dining partner(s). No, can't point to their menu or say "Page three on the bottom!". No, you have to give them your phone. Oops! They touched something or it scrolled or went into low-power.
It's a fairly miserable experience for some of us.
If I'm not really hungry, or if the food isn't easily visible, I do the same as you do: yes, I carry a computer, but refuse to use it in most restaurants.
If McDonalds can afford some wall poster with pictures + names and prices, I'm sure most restaurants can. So the question is more why don't they want to? Even a flier by the door would be enough for me!
However, on a site were most people love pushing tech even when the best solutions are not technological, I wouldn't be surprised if we were in the minority and people tried to rationalize using QR codes.
> Even a flier by the door would be enough for me!
I wonder how many restaurants there are who can't afford paper flyers. They might even be faster/easier than maintaining an online menu.
(You know the food's going to be good when the picture is faded from 15 years of sunlight.)
It's very popular to the point that servers actually ask you to use it vs asking them.
In America this wont happen because of the tipping culture, so we get the worst bit (reading a menu on your phone) without the useful bit (reliably entering your order and paying without the check/card/away/back/tip dance).
Very convenient!
I get it, the convenience of having a simple menu in hand (0 steps) vs. a QR code menu (5-6 steps) trumps whatever interactivity the latter menu provides.
I guess the expectation of users sitting in a restaurant is to move away from their phones and technology and move towards socializing and a QR menu brings those back onto the table.
To go to extra steps you need to get extra value (and not just "use our app and save 5$" type of value) - something like being able to save custom variations from previous visits, order before and have it nearly ready, etc.
Anyways, off to raise $50m for QR-menus-on-the-blockchain, wish me luck.
Yes, but on the other hand the QR ordering I've done here in Singapore streamlines a lot of other steps from the rest of the ordering-food-and-paying process.
It's especially useful that you no longer have to synchronize with wait staff. You can just order and pay whenever.
We have the choice to say no to blind redirects-in-the-middle for service transactions with a human server present.
The biggest gripe I have, is that I follow the code, and:
1) It asks me to register an account; and
2) Upon finally getting to the menu, my phone is immediately taken over by a full-screen ad, forcing me to scroll down, to see an almost incomprehensible ToC, that is based on whatever they are pushing, as opposed to what I want.
When I sit down, if there's no menus, and one of those gegaws is in the middle of the table, I ask "May I have a menu, please?"
If they point at the gegaw, I repeat: "May I have a menu, please?"
The point generally sinks in.
Well, you succeeded. Get over it.
QR code menus dominate here where I live in the US Midwest. Here’s the thing - they only replace the physical menu. Wait staff still takes your order, gets refills, etc. just as when we had physical menus. When it comes time to pay many restaurants now bring a device to your table so you can pay. The wait staff no longer disappears with your credit card. Nice.
The nice thing about this system is it gets rid of the germ-laden physical menu, eliminates the ability for wait staff to copy your credit card, yet retains the rest of the traditional restaurant experience. No app required.
Y’all might want to take a look at how we’re doing things here.
As for anyone looking to opening a restaurant, if I have to install an app to dine at your restaurant then I’m walking out. That’s definitely not the experience I’m looking for!
Personally, I prefer not to have a server hovering over me as I figure out how much to tip them.
If a restaurant isn’t going to really invest in an experience like that then they absolutely should go back to paper menus.
Don't know about countries, but in Sweden it's never been a problem to split the bill when you're paying. The waiter will just input whatever's needed into the PoS they bring to the table.
Why the hell would I need to download and install the restaurant's app for that and trust it with my payment details? All while I'm trying to just have a meal
This is why Apple’s “App Clips” functionality is so great. You get a small app-like piece of functionality that you’re not installing or keeping, it works while you’re at the restaurant, then you check out with Apple Pay (or equivalent) so you don’t have to input payment details and don’t have to worry about usable payment details being stored by a potentially-insecure website.
- there's internet
- internet is good and unmetered
- the phone is readily available
- ...
vs.
You pay with card/cash at the end of the meal
This is especially the case if you have kids. You don't have total control over when a meltdown is going to happen, so it's nice to be able to pay quick and bail. If you're just a couple adults, the extra time isn't as big a deal.
So why go through all the extra steps with internet?
> This is especially the case if you have kids. You don't have total control over when a meltdown is going to happen
Ah yes. And having to deal with QR codes, the restaurant app etc. is helping how exactly?
A mobile app takes at least a full minute to authorize and download and install over a cell connection. And I sure don't want to install a new app every time I go to a restaurant.
A laminated paper menu often takes several minutes for the server to bring around, or worse.
QR codes are literally the fastest thing around.
I suppose there's some middle-ground "seat yourself" style ones but I can't recall any recently.
Pretty common for restaurants not to have a host, you just ask a waiter nearby and they tell you to sit anywhere you like, and that someone will be by to serve you.
Hosts are expensive and NYC restaurants are often quite small so it's very common not to have them.
So far, every restaurant I've been to also has paper menus. I'm not sure what I'd do if online was the only way to look at the menu. I'd likely find another restaurant.
On the other hand I love NFC for this. It blows my mind that it's not that common. Works perfectly and feels natural, just place your phone at the NFC tag.
I was in a restaurant the other night that had QR codes printed on NFC tags, mounted on the wall for each table. The process of pulling up the menu was effortless.
This part of the experience is by itself so aggravating I haven't had time to think any deeper about other potential downsides honestly
But if you are operating a fine dining establishment(1), where the food is but one component of the experience, and you have a QR code printed on a piece of paper taped to the table ... you're really taking away from the experience you're supposed to be selling.
(1) There are some limited exceptions for places which make a quirky tech vibe part of the experience, which mostly comes up in certain types of sushi bars.
What kind of sushi bars are you talking about here? When I think of fine-dining sushi bars, quirky tech vibe is sort of the furthest thing on my mind.
Chinese hotpot, Korean BBQ, Japanese dining that isn't just sushi bars, Thai and Vietnamese places (among many others) quite often use digital menus as well as digital ordering. None of these exhibit a "quirky tech vibe", aside from some places which use robots to deliver small side dishes, or beverages. Many of these would also not be considered "quick and efficient", at least how you describe them.
It would be good to consider venturing outside your regular dining locales to see what the rest of the world is doing in terms of restaurant experience, and whether the American way is still even relevant.
But I imagine it would suck if I had to open a different UI every single time. The UI I used was tried and true, efficient, and user-friendly, could depend on it working well no matter where I went.
(The restaurants don't really like dealing with the super apps like Grab, because they take a 30% cut.)
I took a client out to lunch. The waitress came to the table, directed our attention to the qr code and left. I was wanting to connect with my guest but instead had to get out my phone, point it at the qr code then peer at a screen, which is the height of bad manners when you are in someone else’s company, choose what I wanted then hand my phone to my guest, which is a revolting and unhygienic thing to do, nowhere else in society is this expected, then he had to do the same, choose something to eat, then I’m damned if I didn’t have to pay for it there and then at the table, get out my credit card and complete the transaction, just such bad manners and embarrassing. Dealing with money has rules and expectations in our society. Are we meant to go through some sort of “I’ll pay/no please I’ll pay” ritual over a qr code menu at the beginning of the meal? Ugh. I hated every moment of that experience.
Instead of enjoying and exploring the menu, chatting lightly about the choices available, I couldn’t wait to get the awful experience over with.
The printed menu, and the human interaction with the waiter, are an integral and key part of the experience of eating out, and if a restaurant owner doesn’t understand that then they really don’t know what business they are in.
QR code menus are lazy, impersonal, offensively pushing me to use tech when I don’t want to, inconvenient, tasteless and generally the absolute opposite of the experience I want when dining out.
Makes no sense to me that restaurant owners think they are a good idea.
I can see why they’d be good at Macdonalds or fast food restaurants but that’s it.
When I book a restaurant I now ask if the use QR code menus and if they do then I cancel.
This is the opposite of the restaurant experience. I'd rather buy a sandwich in a supermarket and eat it on a public bench (which is a nice thing to do, weather permitting).
After that I've learned to refuse patronizing any of these restaurants.
No more "sir are you ready to order" when we haven't even glanced at the menu yet at restaurants. No more "can I get you another drink". No more desperately trying to attract the attention of waitstaff. No more "oh whose round is it now" and trying to remember 8 different orders when you're out at a bar.
An entire suite of dining annoyances just... gone. I love it.
Edit: note that this assumes that they're using a system that allows you to order and pay through the web system as well. Others are talking about PDF menus and that's quite rare here now.
I don’t mind using an app to pay when I’m done though. Especially if I don’t have to wait for the server.
It’s so easy to keep ordering that I and everyone I eat with indeed just keeps ordering.
Every other implementation I’ve seen pretty much sucks though, to your point.
Even when the QR code brings you directly to the website it feels like a clunky experience, so I've gotten in the habit of checking out menus before going to the restaurant if I can.
There are less staff, worse trained staff, longer waits, reduced menus, increased prices etc in many places now.
I get it. It was hard to run a restaurant before the pandemic. I can’t imagine what it’s like now
I'm sure QR codes work great in some circumstances, but they didn't in this instance.
I have a feeling that the industry has stopped depending on this stuff already... it's hard to tell without knowing how it works.
Restaurants are places where the regulars gather at predictable hours, and predictable days, and predictable tables, and don't see suspicious to give personal dietary info linked with credit cards.
Is really surprising that nobody has tried still to swap a chunk of paper or put a stick over the QR code at the table to substitute it with a different QR code hacked, so when you order, they redirect you to the official web and at the same time silently copy your personal info in a different web.
Or replaces he lamb dish of a notorius iman with a dish containing pork.
Or allows a paparazzi to change the impossible meat hamburguer of a famous vegan actress by something made of real meat. The paparazzi takes photos and sell some profitable outrage disguised as restaurant error.
Or change the dish of a CEO allergic to peanuts by one that contains a sauce made with spinach and peanut butter
Or spice the dish of a major league baseball or tennis player with a drug, so it fails the next anti doping test. It does not matter that he wear dark glasses, has grown a beard and is unrecognizable. Will be instantly caught by the personal data linked to him.
Or orders somebody in a kitchen to put a pinch of polony in that dish in the table 5. Don't need the complicity of the waiter anymore, and the dish will be served with a smile and no sweating by a waiter that will end in jail without even suspecting it.
The possibilities to abuse the system are endless. They are like the .exe dancing banana attachment of our time, except that you eat the banana now, so this time the target is your body instead your computer.
Most restaurants would not notice the replacement until later (or would never notice it if the next client in that table restores the original QR code). Specially in a world where people don't talk with the waiters anymore, or were replaced by robots.
Some owners see clear value in increased labour efficiency and revenue generation (people order more when using their phones), while others don’t want their customers playing with phones because it cheapens the experience.
It’s really just a matter of product-market fit; some venues are naturally more receptive to QR codes than others. The jury is still out as to which venues they are.
It’s also a matter of technology catching up to the ordering experience. Who wouldn’t want to see an AR version of their dish and be able to interact with it? Imagine scrolling through every menu item as if it were right in front of you, clicking on it, zooming in, seeing the exact portions, having all dietary and ingredient information readily available and being able to tinker with your order at will, having interactive information about the source of ingredients.. The possibilities are truly endless and fully customizable by each venue.
Ordering is also a subtle signalling tool of social status, so taking that away will upset some people, like snobs at The Atlantic. Some people like showing off how much they know about an ingredient on the menu, displaying dominance over waiters/waitresses and even fellow guests, etc.
The only way to have mass adoption is to please everyone, which you can’t at the early stages. That’s why it‘s currently being used by venues that are getting a lot of value from it. (Labour efficiency)
Journalists are not hired for their imagination, particularly at The Atlantic (establishment conformists). Using tech to order from a menu will only get better over time because, at the end of the day, the paying customer will enjoy the experience. But we’re not there yet for most venues.
Reading this thread I see yet again why the super-app approach is probably the best one when adopted front to back in this context - selection,ordering,payment.
Me, for one. That sounds a bit like a touchscreen-enabled glove box lock from the other HN thread today.
All they have done is bring me a plate of food , zero interaction. Why why why should I tip them? Still pisses me off. I actively avoid restaurants that use this system. Takeouts however I am fine with in this way.
Also , do not tip in Sweden, ever.
1) bad reception + no unprotected wifi
2) PDF that you have to zoom into, rather than a nice mobile-adapted static page
that makes the experience aweful for me.
- I couldn’t get a coffee recently because there was a couple complaining that their coffee hadn’t arrived. (They took ages) it turned out they had ordered coffee at the wrong location (it’s a chain).
- went for pizza. And had to enable location services to make sure I was in the restaurant. Presumably to prevent the above issue.
- allergies - went to a restaurant where a member of staff has to come out and talk about allergies even though they’re on the digital menu. So you end up ordering twice.
Also, it's the worst when dealing with my senior parents who struggle with technology and basically don't know how to use their smartphones.
Don’t blame poor service on a QR code.
I've seen that at a couple of spots, but the vast majority are just a link to a menu. You order through the server.
And even where I've seen ordering through your phone, it's was just an option for those who prefer it. Not the only, or even recommended, way.
Now, I f you have to order through their menu site, that almost never works well. Those sites are just not well run enough to pull off ordering well.
People might not even notice, just like they don't notice the "18% gratuity included on all orders" that are appearing here and there (and still tip on top of that).
The only outstanding item: what do we name the fee? Keep in mind names already taken are service fee, small order fee, heavy order fee, pickup fee + dropoff fee, Chicago fee (regardless of city), and the anti-fee "customer happiness refund".
Then have a phone number for "refunds" and happily issue them. Nobody will call.
Nobody likes to read a 11x17-sized menu in a PDF that you have to constantly resize on a small screen.
A well-thought menu that is web-based and responsive will be much less frustrating to use.
Bonus point if you can sort by price, calories, and filter for some common allergens, intolerance or dietary choices.
I simply locate my target on the Maps App, then I click through to order online, and I pay with my favorite wallet, and when I hop off the bus and waltz in the door, my order is waiting for me.
Then I have to explain how it's "for here" and I open it up and beg for plasticware and napkins....
(Taco Bell and McDonald's at least don't start your order until you "arrive" at the drive-thru or pickup area; but if you order Taco Bell for "inside pickup" they seem to start cooking it right away ... sometimes?)
The much bigger problem at some places is it drop you on the homepage for the restaurant then you have to hunt for the menu on it. Also some of them make you sign up for an account which is super annoying.
It’s so nice to be able to just leave when finished, at a place where you get your food delivered to the table.
Before the pandemic, this system was already in use in a few places. The pandemic made it spread fast (no pun intended).
As a millennial I don't mind QR code menus at all if they take me to a website for it. If they require me to install an app that's where I draw the line; too much faff - it should be a single step. Requiring an account is a nono as well.
However most QR menus I've used so far have been like this, carefree guest checkout. Easy as. I think the sort of thinking in the article is the age old "these kids & their phones" uttered by people who had their heads in newspapers & TV channels their whole lives. Technology is here.
Customers were ambivalent at best. I ended up hating it, though. It was a cool idea at the time, people were still wearing Bluetooth earpieces and IR beaming each other their contact cards after all, but it was easy to decide that as non-opt-in data collection, it violated volition.
QR code menus don't all suck, but if you're going to do it, have house wifi, make the codes unique to the tables, and just throw up a captive portal patrons can go ahead and order from. Go "serverless" or not at all.
Aside from me, what about people without phones?
The "it's not implemented correctly" argument is irrelevant. I won't take convenience over the risk of being phished, data-mined or straight out surveilled(see china & not only). I'm there to eat, not to discover the 'amazing' power of their technical staff when it comes to software development.
This is not luddism or being anti-tech, it's being anti-stupid-tech. I have no problem ordering food from a tablet or another revolutionary piece of technology that I don't have to carry with me back home or invade my personal space after leaving.
They could replace it with a neat AR experience using the same mobile devices. It will be expensive but will give the user a nice user experience.
Inside of the restaurant though, I get my snob on and hate phones at the table. Once the phones come out, the dining experience tends to die quite a bit. You're taking pictures of your food instead of enjoying it, you're interacting with your phone and social media instead of each other. It's horrible. QR codes just facilitate that transition.
The QR Code is only used to encode the URL, not the full menu content. The menu is simply a web page, whose address can be obtained by many methods - QR Code, Data Matrix code, Aztec code, PDF417 code, Google search, manually typing text, etc.
Furthermore, I don't like how many QR Codes do not have human-readable text. For example, if I wanted to access a restaurant menu on a laptop computer, it makes more sense to type a URL than to awkwardly position its webcam (if it even has one) to scan a barcode.
I very much agree with the author's sentiment that requiring a digital device with power and Internet to simply read a menu is user-hostile.
The problem is most certainly the QR code. The QR code is what is requiring me to have a charged phone (= phone+power bank+charging cable) to read the damn menu. If they gave people devices to read the menu on (e.g. how McDonalds does it) then it would be less problematic.
This by no means solves the issues in the article, it might actually expound the privacy related issues and it deepens our reliance on mobile phones. But it does allow the best of both worlds; letting people choose the sort of service they get. The other choice is to have a physical tablet on each table for people to order from (although that sounds very gross).
A group situation where I was the lemon who scanned the code for the table (of 8 people).
I was then forced to take orders for the table, with all the back and forth that implies.
The worst thing is, everyone had a physical menu. Just the ordering process was initiated by the QR code.
Who needs waiters,l when you have technology, eh!?
Hell.
Never again.
But by doing so they are comiting a capital mistake and that is not delivering what the customer demands, which is not only food but services and potential for human interaction.
But also sometimes you’re at a busy chain restaurant and you don’t want faff. I still hate QR codes that just open PDFs. I hate the default iOS implementation that doesn’t open a Safari tab by default and so disappears if your phone goes to sleep. But if I can do my whole order (including three indecisive kids) from my phone, and then pay, it’s a lot of pressure off.
If I were an artist, I would make art that uses QR codes to exemplify a deteriorating society into technological authoritarianism. Always connected, always watching. See China: https://twitter.com/bfm_jose/status/1556544301743702016
Out of 5 restaurants in Miami only two had QR codes, and one revealed menus instantly at the slightest hint that someone at the table couldn't read the code.
It started as a hygiene thing. Now it's stayed as a convenience thing.
At this point in NYC I'm extremely surprised whenever I see a physical menu.
(Sounds like they’re not well done in practice although don’t have much personal experience- maybe haven’t hit the UK as much yet)
While we are on the subject… The worst app crime is the effing calmac ferry app. All the timetables would amount to about 100kb of data which is updated usually once a year months in advance. Phone reception is non existent or spotty in a lot of the Highlands and Islands, but when you go to the app to check a timetable it tries to download a PDF file! every time you open a timetable page!! It’s a reasonably rare situation where it makes sense to have an app not a website.
https://pos.toasttab.com/products/mobile-order-and-pay
>With Toast Mobile Order & Pay™, guests can easily scan a QR code to browse the menu, order, and pay, all from their mobile device. Plus with Apple Pay, guests can pay in less than 10 seconds.
In general, yeah, give me a piece of paper, there are far more people who can print some text than developers who can make a decent menu page — and it's quite sad, given it should just be a single, flat HTML page with an "index"
Maybe it’s just me but I would really like author to get to the point. Also QR code menus are great.
Edit: One thing to add is that the QR code restaurants I have went to have the physical menu as well so if you forget your phone you can still order.
Have a menu where you have to scroll horizontally to see the prices and then set them higher based on how indifferent the customer seems to be to look at them.
Have each table have a different qr code and then raise the prices if it's a large group on the premise that auditing will be more challenging.
There's a bunch of clever executions without even basic profiling.
Why oh why don't QR codes include a URL for users to type manually? No graceful failure here.
If you're lucky any specials of the day will also be on it, instead of having to scan the entire restaurant for hastily written signs. And in some restaurants things that are out of stock will be marked so on the website.
Wouldn't mind if that site was a tad more advanced also let me place an order that goes into some order queue.
Also wouldn't mind if that site can text me the bill so I can pay using something standard like GPay or Apple Pay.
Just don't make it fucking impossible to use, keep it simple and fast.
I was at a small but prominent Montreal hamburger restaurant recently. I scanned the QR, and was confronted with page after page of whisky, wine and beer, when all I wanted was a hamburger. Six pages down, I finally found the burgers. Irritating.
Luckily there's a strong correlation between having QR menus and having poor service, so I could continue going to most of my favorite places.
If I would not afford to pay, I would rather cook at home then settle with subpar food and subpar experience.
It's available in virtually all restaurants, it works really well and you can pay using Apple Pay incl. tips. Such a time saver and so handy.
And no local specific features are required: no apps (think WeChat or similar), no local bank accounts, etc.
It just works.
tldr; It's a UI/UX problem that can be fixed. The idea itself is sound.
Install a strong adblocker on Firefox (on Android). Avoid any app where there's a website alternative.
I don’t have anything else to add except that I vehemently agree with this article.
I'm not sure how you could call grocery stores as having "semi-monopoly positions" and being "extremely profitable", when they have razor thin profit margins.
That's not what "monopoly" means. Whether you "have to eat" is irrelevant. Most states have monopolies on gambling, but even though nobody has to buy lottery tickets, it's still a monopoly.
> I can rent or buy a house.
But you still need to get shelter somehow, right? ;)
After payment, the customer takes the basket to a 3rd location to bag their groceries and leave. There are clerks available to assist.
It is amazingly fast, I had the misfortune of shopping at 6:00 pm. I looked at the lines and estimated twenty minute checkout, actually got finished in about five minutes. The basket size limits the amount of groceries which is a minus, but helps move around the store quickly vs a huge cart and checks out faster.
Only if you don't count the time waiting in line before it's your turn. Consider this analogy: you have a single-threaded task that takes 30 seconds to complete on CPU X, which has 4 cores, or 1 minute to complete on CPU Y, which has 24 cores. If your task is the only one running, then CPU X will finish it faster, but if there are 20 other tasks that also need to run, then CPU Y will finish yours faster.
Really all that’s needed is an ARM chip from 10 years ago mated to a display of this era.
Thankfully I can just put in a fake number and normally the order still goes through.
Given that, I have to ask the Americans: how can you still justify that absurd 20% tip?
You'd think that waiting staff would take care with the part where they collect the money to pay their wages but it's incredible how often they go AWOL at that point in proceedings or double down on the "actively not looking towards the customers". In principle I'd like to be on reasonable terms with them but when that happens I'd take automation any day.
Having said that, I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations.
In that case, they could just hand out menus at the entrance. Or if they don't greet you and instead just let you sit wherever, they can just put the menus in an obvious place. Restaurants have done this forever in similar situations. Online menus aren't necessary to solve this problem.
> Having said that, I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations.
I don't really agree. At least I don't think it's an unambiguously great innovation. Personally I find the requirement to have a phone much more irritating than to the requirement to have cash or credit cards. That said, I've never seen a place accept payments by phone not accept either cash or credit cards so I guess it's mostly just irrelevant to me.
This article and the comments here are complaining about restaurants who _only_ use QR codes for menus. I'd presume there is basically no one against having the _option_ of seeing the menu with a QR code. While I personally find QR codes much inferior to many other simpler approaches (paper slips, menus at the door, menu on the wall, etc.), I don't care if they offer them in addition to traditional methods.
Yes, I also found this sentence to be very naive. No, they don't have the 2-second task of handing you a menu, instead they have the 2-minute task of explaining why there's no menu, trying to find the QR code reader on your phone, waiting for it to actually show up, then handing the phone back to you and demonstrating how to navigate between pages.
In many places physical menus are handed out by a hostess whose whole job is to seat you and do that. If I want to "give them a break", I often just cook or get takeout. Physical menus are not hard to do and are much more friendly than reading from the palm of your hand.
I have never experienced a weird website as is described in this thread. Discussing with people I'm dining with is also... the same? I have no clue how you are experiencing something different here.
Digital menus are not hard to do and are much more friendly. That said, this could all depend on how modern the area you regularly dine at - I'd expect less tech-savvy regions to fumble at this, which may indeed be your experience!
Life tip: tipping in cash is always preferred (by the tipee) over doing so digitally.
Thanks, but I'm going to tip through the normal tipping mechanism with my normal payment method to ensure that everyone stays honest.
And that probably includes the honest GrubHub drivers who invariably ditch my drink if they decide I haven't tipped high enough in the app.
No, we can't all agree to that. I dislike it deeply and won't do it. But I'm glad it pleases some people!
1) Those that like QR code menus. Going to a restaurant is not pleasure, it’s just an annoying means of getting food and the aim is to make it as efficient as a factory. No talking, no waiting, no eye contact at all if possible, ideally they would have a robot by the table that could spoon feed them so they never have to put their phone down and use their time to be mega efficient by looking at some spreadsheets.
2) people who see the act of going to a restaurant as a way of enjoying life. They don’t mind waiting a little bit for the waiter. They have great company and already enjoy a nice conversation. They probably already have a nice cocktail in their hands which they got from the bar whilst waiting for the table. They love looking around at other people, love looking at other peoples plates to get inspired for what they might want to eat themselves. Those people are in no rush. They don’t need to be anywhere else, they enjoy spending time together so it doesn’t matter where. They love talking to the waiter and ask which items on the menu are customer’s favourites or if the chef has a special recommendation today based on the seasonal produce they managed to source on that day. They love to discover new wines based on recommendations instead of always picking the same drink off the menu. These people take pleasure in the process and the experience and therefore hate QR codes and everything that comes with it. They hate paying via the app before being able to ask the waiter if the tips get fairly shared. These people take pride in whatever they do and enjoy light hearted banter with the staff and can leave a bar man or waiter with a smile even on a long day.
Personally I am category two. Life is to be lived. There is a time and place for a quick and efficient meal, but that is takeout and not going to a restaurant for me.
Your entire comment is just an exaggerated caricature of what is actually being discussed.
In essence, I think you're mostly right though, but I see a hard battle ahead, since most people go with the flow.
I remember the barbarous days of smoking inside, and there was no way to sway even a group of mostly non-smokers to go to a non-smoking location.
I am in no rush, don't need to be anywhere else, and enjoy the time I spend with those accompanying me. And yet, if there was a way to just push a button somewhere and have the food I ordered delivered to my table, I'd love that.
I don't like being asked if the food is to my liking while I'm eating, and I'd like to just push yet another button to pay, without having to deal with waiting for waiters to come to my table.
No, I don't want to look at spreadsheets, but I also don't want to spend any more energy than I have to by making banter with the staff, light hearted or not.
Life is to be lived, but there's more than one way to live it.
Touché. That's a great comment and I've upvoted you for it!
(I know I over exaggerated in my description to make a point. I didn't expect people to take it serious down to every word. I merely wanted to convey a sentiment and how people approach dining so differently)
Sure, QR codes aren't perfect. They'll either get better or they'll die/get replaced. That's the way technology works: we try a lot of things, and some of them work.
What happened to the good old days in America, when people were scared if they so much as connected to my Wifi without permission they'd disappear for a decade? Nowadays it's like any given morning, for all I know those dastardly Distributed Denial of Secrets hackers will be sitting on the corner uploading their latest ill gotten gains.
(You don't have to use a computer at all in the restaurant.)