Ask HN: How can we make restaurant menus better with tech? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can we make restaurant menus better with tech?

2 pointsrishikeshs14 comments

Most restaurants these days request customers to scan a QR code or pass a tablet with a menu pdf opened!

I find it very inconvenient scrolling up and down figuring out things.

How can we make menus better with tech?

I think we can use flat screens for tables, this allows to show the kids advertisements while the parents choose what to order. They do so by donning VR headsets; interaction with the items presented in the VR is easily done by installing an app on their smartphones. The VR presents a world where communication is done via a hotline with a voice menu. Dial "one" to enter your name, birth date, and credit card details. A friendly engaging person appears that will strongly suggest to order today's special offering. When the food has been prepared (i.e. procured by gig workers riding bicycles) a shrill beeping sound and a blindingly bright flashing light above the table will signal that now it's time to fetch the plastic-wrapped delicious morsels from the delivery hatch. A waste bin next to the table makes it easy to dispose of the wrapping. Plastic cutlery is used to ensure hygiene standards are met. During the meal you will be required to periodically interact and engage with the loud and colorful commercials shown on the table top. The kids love it.

I think a paper menu is good, especially for a restaurant that you will sit down and they will come to take your order. If changes are made, they could save paper and ink by only printing pages that have changed rather than all of them. They could also be made in a reasonably compact format, which also saves paper.

Sometimes you don't want to print out a copy; in this case, e-ink displays might help. I think e-ink displays would be useful for many kind of business signs that do not need to be changed but sometimes do, e.g. daily (or less often, e.g. the business hours sign, which might have different hours each day of the week but the sign will list all of them so doesn't need to change very often).

A QR code won't help in case the customer cannot use it (although I have seen a restaurant that provided a iPad for customers who needed it; the only time I was ever at such a restaurant, I was with someone else who already had a iPad, although they did not always bring their iPad with them so they might not have had it and needed the one provided by the restaurant if they didn't bring it with them).

A compressed representation of restaurant menus in a computer file might sometimes be useful in some circumstances, too, although this does not really substitute for any of the above.

Buy every restaurant a printer for $100, a few reams of paper, and a lamination machine

In my opinion, the best way to make restaurant menus better is to go back to printed menus. Every other solution I've seen is terrible, and I can't think of a way to make them not terrible (but that doesn't mean there isn't a way, of course).

I prefer paper menus

i dont like taking my phone out, and so i dont scan any qr code if i can avoid it. i wouldnt mind the qr code next to a menu item, that i can scan for super detailed list of incredients, for allergies etc

> i dont like taking my phone out

This is one of my problems with electronic menus. I don't want to take my phone out of my pocket, and I don't want the people I'm with to do so, either. Neither do I want the restaurant's screen at the table.

All of those things really detract from the social pleasure of dining out.

Menus suck because the tech sucks. Solution: more tech?

once someone scans a QR code a tiny drone lifts off the in kitchen, finds the person who scanned the QR code and beams the menu into their ears using directional audio so only they can hear it. once a certain discomfort level is reached the drone can pick up on this via its sensors and signal a waiter that the client is ready for the next phase of their customer journey

Why print menus when you can print food?

A holographic display of menu items with smellovision. When you choose an item, it is 3-D printed on the spot.

QR codes are annoying why do we need tech in everything? Paper menus are good

This won’t look good in the ESG reports! :D

How many bits of paper does a restaurant need? How much electricity does their webpage menu use running 24/7.

I can’t tell if you’re joking but no ESG professional would care about a paper menu’s impact sorry.

Just have no choice: menu is fixed, one per restaurant, you don't like it when you go elsewhere. Or, we close up all restaurants. A system that works perfectly and with no bug and perfect usability, is invisible or doesn't exist. Let your mind explore the negative space.

Step 1: Buy printer

2: Print menus

Step 1 is optional.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com