The QR-code menu is being shown the door

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/dining/restaurant-qr-code-menu.html

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

169 368 3 years ago

nytimes.com

solarized• 3 years ago

qr just add so much friction in ordering process!

* You must connected to inet,

* unlock your phone

* find the scanner apps

* pointing your phone to qrcode

* scan

* wait for menu loaded. depend on inet & server speed.

wtf. peoples came to restaurant as customer. to eat. Not as an inventory staff.

bawolff• 3 years ago

Not to mention you cant view the entire menu at a glance and end up navigating back and forth to figure out what you want.

cmelbye• 3 years ago

I'd be completely fine with QR code menus if the menu websites weren't horrifically bad 90% of the time. Doesn't take more than 10 seconds to scan the code.

paulddraper• 3 years ago

* squint at the menu on the 5" screen in your palm

usrusr3• 3 years ago

Ironically I've seen people take a snap of the paper menu so that they can zoom in on their handheld screens. Which works much better than zooming in on a mobile website or in an app, so another point for the paper menu.

(not as often as seeing people snap the paper menu so that they can get it through their translation service of choice or share a copy without banging their heads together, apparently paper menus only get better through technology)

hn_throwaway_993• 3 years ago

Your list feels a bit like r/WhereDidTheSodaGo, that is those silly infomercials that make it seem like putting dishes away in the cupboard is some monumental task. I mean "find the scanner apps"? Are there phones nowadays where the code scanner isn't just built into the camera app? I don't think I've used a dedicated scanner app for at least half a decade.

I find QR menus annoying when you're at a place where you specifically want to forget about your phone, like a nice restaurant for dinner, but I don't think they're some huge amount of work.

jeroenhd3• 3 years ago

Don't overestimate the general audience. You can scan QR codes with every modern camera app, but if you don't know you can, you'll have to wait for someone to tell you. It's been months since I last saw a QR code and that was just because of a TOTP setup, I doubt most people use them in their daily lives. Many apps using them like to pretend you need to download their app to scan them as well.

My biggest issue, outside of the usual terrible websites these codes link to, is that I often find myself with a phone already on battery saving mode when I go into a restaurant at the end of the day. Having to do conscious battery management in case I want to order desert is just an unnecessary pain.

ok_dad• 3 years ago

Don’t forget, half these stupid things require you to give personal info to order, plus they can fingerprint your browser. It’s not great for privacy.

hedora2• 3 years ago

My personal favorite:

- Realize restaurant is in a cell dead spot.

- Wander around looking for wifi code.

- Conclude the hand-written I in the password is an l or 1 on your third attempt typing it in.

davchana2• 3 years ago

Add to that:

QR code gets printed at different resolution and or ratio, and or laminated glare, and now not getting scanned.

ricardobayes2• 3 years ago

I don't even bring a smartphone with me when I'm out so that definitely lead to a few funny moments in restaurants lately.

Gigachad4• 3 years ago

All of that takes 10% of the time it takes for a waiter to arrive at your table and take an order.

It’s also way faster for on iPhones which most restaurant customers have. You just lift your phone, tap the camera icon on the Lock Screen and it scans the code right away.

Then you just double tap the power button and it’s paid and ordered.

Freak_NL3• 3 years ago

It’s also way faster for on iPhones which most restaurant customers have.

That's a very US centric view of the world.

Turskarama• 3 years ago

The version of this I much prefer is tablet on the side of the table, though I understand people are concerned about hygiene.

seanmcdirmid3• 3 years ago

Those tablets are going to get as dirty as physical menus, at least. They can be cleaned easily enough, however.

dredmorbius• 3 years ago

Keep in mind that the Covid-19 putative justification for QR codes was touchless interaction --- multiple people weren't handling the same menu.

Printing out single-use paper menus runs less than a dime an impression. Laminated menus which can be sanitised after each use would have a per-instance cost below that and can be reused 100s to 1,000s of times.

walthamstow2• 3 years ago

Sounds like this would eventually generate a horrendous amount of e-waste.

aleksiy123• 3 years ago

For the most part restaurants just link their pdf menu or their site.

But do people think there is room for a better menu experience through the browser?

I feel like there is but haven't really seen it yet.

fowl23• 3 years ago

* Support damn Apple/Google Pay without requiring a email, phone number, login, or app! Or even allow that payment at the register, either before or after service.

* Include the table number in the code!

* Include any weekend/public holiday/service/surcharge in the prices! It makes sense not to print a new menu for 1 day a week, but this is digital and already implemented in your system!

* Don't forcefully 'suggest' a tip before service has been delivered! (in places where tips aren't customary/required).

* For fast food/take out places, include back-pressure in your ordering/time estimates. If there are 20 orders queued with one cook, don't give an estimate of 5 minutes!

* Ordering in your own time is amazing!

* Pictures are great!

* Being able to instantly remove "out of stock" items, perfect!

* Bill splitting "by default" is useful!

jeroenhd3• 3 years ago

If only restaurants actually did that. All I've ever gotten from these are broken websites. Pictures are generic stock pictures (hiring a food photographer every time you change the menu is expensive), ordering is still done the old fashioned way as a means to get some overpriced drinks on your table as soon as possible, and "out of stock" is something you get told when you order because asking the kitchen to update the website as they cook is just unnecessary overhead.

In theory this can be nice, but in practice restaurants seem to use these as a way to mess with prices on the fly or save on printing menus.

smelendez• 3 years ago

Ordering via code in the US would be a challenge I think. As you said, restaurants would lose the chance to offer drinks (and appetizers and specials), and servers might lose out on tips if there’s less customer interaction.

Also, I think you’d want to charge people as they order to incentivize people to double check their orders, and that would make it harder for people to seamlessly treat each other or split shared items.

In general I think people in the US have built a lot of little rituals and social customs around how restaurants work, for better or worse, and messing with those makes people uncomfortable, especially now after all the shifts around covid

seanmcdirmid3• 3 years ago

Red Robin has terminals at each table that can take NFC payments. No need to enter an email address. Too bad they seem to be going out of business.

nichos• 3 years ago

Chilis does this too.

pier25• 3 years ago

Don't put your menu in fucking Facebook and force me download that app to see it.

matt-attack2• 3 years ago

without requiring an email, phone number, login

That's precisely what Apple's App Clips are. I've used these on several restaurant receipts and they're amazing:

https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/

You basically just scan the QR, checkout instantly with Apple Pay, and nothing to sign up for, and no horrible App to install.

usrusr3• 3 years ago

What's the lowest rate you can do in-app purchases at in an app clip? And to put it in perspective with tips, how much of that goes to poor, underpaid Apple employees and how much goes to shareholders?

sneak3• 3 years ago

It sucks that when you scan these you can't choose to open the website.

Apps are an attack on the open web and I don't want them being able to do things like access location or other app-related things.

skohan3• 3 years ago

The tipping function on electronic payments is a blight. I'm starting to see this regularly in Berlin, a place where tipping is not customary in many settings and just having this as a step you have to click through on the payment processor creates a level of social expectation.

pishpash• 3 years ago

Then have a thick skin and say no. That's the only way.

antihero• 3 years ago

In the U.K. I’ve seen a lot of bar staff press 0% as they hand you the machine.

aulin• 3 years ago

Support damn Apple/Google Pay without requiring a email, phone number, login, or app!

Wait, no idea how Apple works, but with Google Wallet in Europe you just tap your phone over the POS display and it goes straight to your credit card without any other step.

Is that different in US?

shortcake272• 3 years ago

Nah, it’s the same, but the problem is that most QR menus force you to provide a phone number when ordering which is highly invasive and unnecessary. Just let me order and pay without collecting a bunch of PII.

fowl23• 3 years ago

Both can also be used on the web.

numpad03• 3 years ago

I suppose the payment goes through the app like it does for online purchases, not via the waiter handheld/POS terminal?

lwansbrough• 3 years ago

US has NFC although to a lesser extent than EU/Canada. But this is talking about on-device Apple/Google Pay, where you get prompted to use your stored payment with native UI.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_pay_on_the_w...

tmvst• 3 years ago

The tips are forcefully suggested to offset the cost of the order processing service.

These apps often take a 10%+ cut from every order. Which makes it hard to sell to a restaurant. If I pre-select 10% tip, most people will pay it making the app basically free and a no-brainer for the restaurant.

I think it should be communicated better, but this is how I've seen it work.

peoplefromibiza3• 3 years ago

you are assuming that the experience should be tailored on the US market

most of those assumptions don't apply outside the US

for example: tipping at the checkout, bill splitting, different timezones, different prices based on holidays and whatnot, are not a common requirement (or non existent) where I live.

OTOH constantly changing menus are quite common, they are handled in the simplest way possible: you get a printed menu with the classics and then there are blackboards all around with the daily specials and/or the waiters will tell you what they are, before taking the order

https://10619-2.s.cdn12.com/m0/Rome-Taverna-Romana-menu.jpg

phoenixreader• 3 years ago

QR code menus are extremely popular in countries that have wide digital payment adoptions, such as China. Each QR code is linked to a table number. You take out your phone, turn on the camera with one click, scan the code, select the items you want to order, then click “pay”. It will take you to your digital payment provider (in China it’s often WeChat), which already has your payment info. Enter your PIN, and you’re done.

seanmcdirmid3• 3 years ago

China has lacked affordable NFC payment terminals, so they went with QR codes instead (no special hardware needed, just mobile phones with cameras). They are increasingly moving to NFC, so it will mostly be like how digital payments work in the west eventually.

I really hate QR coupons at the grocery store. They are pretty easy when they scan, but grocery store glossy curved labeling makes that as hard as possible.

quickthrower22• 3 years ago

Apple pay is excellent when accepted. Similar experience.

hn_throwaway_993• 3 years ago

This part made me a bit mad on behalf of restaurant owners:

paying for the QR menus on top of printed menus can be costly — especially if customers aren't using them.

I mean, hosting a low-volume static website and printing out a URL as a QR code are nearly free. So many tech businesses take advantage of restaurant owners (and restaurants are already an extremely low margin business) solely because most restauranteurs are not tech savvy.

jeroenhd3• 3 years ago

Hosting is cheap, but people who can write HTML and CSS aren't. You need some kind of SaaS and that's where you need to know that you can use Squarespace/Wix/whatever free tool you prefer and just print out a QR code, but that's not something restaurant oriented SaaS providers will tell you.

Printing menus costs a few cents, laminating them a bit more. That's a tough price to beat.

hn_throwaway_993• 3 years ago

Hosting is cheap, but people who can write HTML and CSS aren't

The level of "create a static online version of my menu" is something ChatGPT could actually do quite easily.

hedora2• 3 years ago

File -> Print to pdf…

Dodgy QR code sites are surprisingly common (pro tip: convert it back to text, and see if they are bouncing through a server so they can later charge you to prevent the code from “expiring”).

S3 sync + https lambda + cdn is a shockingly huge pain in the ass to setup, but once it is done, you just “s3 sync” the directory with the pdf you printed.

I agree with your general point though. That corner of the industry is full of predatory service providers.

lightedman• 3 years ago

You don't need more than the basics of HTML 1.0 to make a menu for a restaurant. I had those figured out at 10.

edmundsauto• 3 years ago

Costs are higher for businesses that require high touch sales or support. Small businesses in general, are challenging for both.

MattGaiser• 3 years ago

A relative of mine had a static site with 4 pages made for her business. Static site to show some images and files and list a phone number and email.

$13,000 dollars + monthly hosting charges.

sphars• 3 years ago

Wow, I need to start charging a lot more

M4v3R• 3 years ago

Assuming $50 per hour it’s 260 hours of work. Divide that between a programmer (static websites still need too be coded) and designer that’s 130 hours each - less than a month of work. If the website was custom made (didn’t just use a premade Wordpress template) then this price is entirely believable.

FredPret• 3 years ago

Was there custom design work?

laratied2• 3 years ago

We have just evolved a type of racket to over charge people but this massively inefficient racket will hopefully die soon.

At this point it is really just a type of business tax and anti-progress. Paying 13k for a geocities site is increasing the probability the business fails.

I just can't imagine anyone paying that by 2030. Midjourney can already do the most amazing design work but it is stuck at the conceptual level. It won't be stuck at that stage for ever.

csa2• 3 years ago

That’s really high, unless there is part of the story that we are missing.

I could see it costing this much if there was extensive copywriting needs, detailed SEO needs, super-high performance requirements, and/or highly-stylized design.

Otherwise, that’s way overpriced.

Gigachad4• 3 years ago

In my experience they aren’t just static files. They are paying for an entire platform and integrated system that takes orders and payments. That’s expensive. But probably cheaper than a fully manual process.

justinclift• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/4cdcB

unsignedint• 3 years ago

One of the primary concerns regarding QR codes is their security. How can we ensure that malicious individuals are unable to place stickers containing QR codes that direct users to fraudulent payment sites pretending to be legitimate restaurants?

nocsi• 3 years ago

It’s the same threat space as those placing card skimming machines. It’s not like people are falling for this at a large scale. The ones that should care are the restaurants, since customers will just report the fraud and get refunded. In that case, restaurants will have staff validate each QR code anyways

throwaway290• 3 years ago

Worse than accidentally paying a wrong vendor, with the right zero-click zero-day remote execution sploit visiting a malicious link can lead to pwnage of your device.

This is why it's better to never click links in emails or scan QRs. I remember an Airbnb listing that mandated extra "check in" via scanning some QR and denied stay otherwise... sorry but no way.

jstarfish• 3 years ago

The FBI put out an advisory about this very concern recently.

tln• 3 years ago

This is way overblown. How do you see this heist going down exactly?

Someone targets a restaurant, gets QR stickers made, replicates the restaurant ordering system, replaces them on tables, hopes the servers and customers don't notice, people order, somehow the food comes? Or they order from the waiter and then pay, and somehow the bill on the faked site is correct? Then the customer leaves, and the restaurant doesn't even notice and let's this keep happening.

Oceans 14 we have your plot right here!

doktorhladnjak• 3 years ago

Customers don't want to take out their phones when dining out, because it can be perceived as rude or distracting

This is why I HATE QR code menus. I’m at a restaurant to enjoy time with others. If I wanted to stare at my phone, I’d have ordered takeout or delivery. It sets up the wrong vibe.

bentcorner• 3 years ago

On one hand I agree with you but on the other, it's the exact same thing as staring at a menu, just on a small metal rectangle.

earthling81183• 3 years ago

So I take it you don't look at physical menus either? I imagine that would largely detract from you enjoying time with your people as you'd be staring at a piece of paper.

qgin• 3 years ago

They were going strong in Asia before the pandemic and they're still going strong now. The hatred of QR codes isn't universal.

another_story• 3 years ago

Strong in China. I haven't seen them much elsewhere.

ricardobayes2• 3 years ago

Became very popular in Spain during covid

gregjor• 3 years ago

I just ask for a real menu, restaurants still have them. The worry about getting COVID from a paper or plastic menu was wildly overblown. Sitting in a restaurant with other people is much more of a risk than touching a menu.

Funny how expensive restaurants print their menus daily, on paper, and then throw them away after the customer uses them. Cheap restaurants have big plastic-coated menus. Simply photocopying the menu for one-time use would get around the QR code hassle/risk, and the (probably unwarranted) germ phobia.

selcuka• 3 years ago

Simply photocopying the menu for one-time use would get around the QR code hassle/risk

The QR codes have nothing to do with the germ phobia, but with restaurants wanting to hire less staff. The customer does the waiter's job now.

navigate8310• 3 years ago

QR codes are still a valid option where the cafe is self-service

ChatGTP• 3 years ago

Restaurants are where I go to have a break from "tech" and usually enjoy a meal with someone, I don't want to touch my phone while doing that.

kekub• 3 years ago

I always recommend https://qrmenucreator.com/ to restaurant owners. I feel it is simple enough for them to get started, gives features like instant changes and comes with a sane default layout/ui and is free of charge. Payment and ordering would still be done in the classical way, but you get the chance to at least have an always up to date menu with the possibility to reflect when something is sold out or temporarily unavailable.

dang• 3 years ago

Url changed from https://www.businessinsider.com/people-hate-qr-code-menus-re..., which points to this.

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

neonate• 3 years ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20230524143526/https://www.nytime...

https://archive.ph/XrO8i

andrewstuart• 3 years ago

If you own a restaurant that uses QR code menus, please know I will never come to your establishment.

ApolloFortyNine2• 3 years ago

Damn sad to see the hate.

My favorite restaurants in Japan were the ones you could order at will at the table, or where you buy the ticket at the door. No flagging down servers, no waiting for the check, waiting to get checked out.

Seeing the outrage here just from scanning a qr code for the menu, it doesn't look like any automation is going to be coming any time soon.

pixxel• 3 years ago

For me, and others, ‘waiting’ is time to think, converse, or watch the world rotate. I also prefer the old fashioned method of communicating with a fellow human to order my food. I want the opposite of what you want, and that’s okay.

pas• 3 years ago

in my experience (here and there in the EU) servers still come and talk to you, simply the menu is a webpage. and nowadays they ask you if you need the hardcopy :)

no_wizard• 3 years ago

Willing to bet the experience in Japan is superior to the average we get in the US.

In the US it’s seen as pure cost cutting measure, and not integrated smoothly as part of the considered experience a lot of the time.

When it’s considered as part of the experience it works tremendously well, it’s just not common enough

Daz12• 3 years ago

No it's janky and awful. I live here.

expertentipp2• 3 years ago

The problem is that they don't do it to create a seamless experience. The temptation to suck in the personal data and exchange money for some "credits" is simply too big... and an excuse not to hire any front staff.

Gigachad4• 3 years ago

QR menus are a life saver for large meetups or people you know casually. You can just scan and pay without leaving the conversation, and there is no headache around trying to recover payments from everyone, especially if you don’t know them all.

WeylandYutani2• 3 years ago

America is a country with tons of available cheap labour. That's why they don't need automation.

iSnow2• 3 years ago

I'm not visiting a restaurant to get food the fastest way, I do it to relax, for the experience, to talk to whoever is with me. I just hate QR workflows for that. Do it for fast food joints, but not in proper dining places.

vel0city• 3 years ago

If it's done well it can be in addition to regular service. One thing I really like is when they make it easy to order another round of drinks or make it easy to pay without having to wait for the server to get me the check or bring a terminal over to me.

earthling81183• 3 years ago

I happen to hate the server based workflow. When I visit a restaurant I do it to relax, for the experience, and to talk to whoever is with me. Not mess around talking to a random employee.

It goes both ways.

crooked-v• 3 years ago

I think a lot of the hate has to do with these being the worst possible implementations of such systems, like requiring you to create an account with a password just to order food.

diceduckmonk2• 3 years ago

Restaurants that have the latter are chains or catering to tourists, and unfortunately not going to have such a system.

The latter are ramen and other cheap eats, excluding shokudo. One “boutique” ramen shop owner has told me it was not cost effective to buy a ticket vending machine. I guess you have to be at a particular scale and throughput to have a ticket vending machine. And restaurants that optimize for throughput are usually not the best ones. Again unfortunately.

Then izakayas menus are in Kanji and even Japanese people have trouble ordering at times. That’s kind of the experience and point though.

Regarding QR code based menus, I’m curious whether you’ve experienced bad implementations. I live here, traveled all 47 prefectures maybe 3 times over, and have used dozens of digital menu implementation. There’s only been 1 or 2 that were smooth, but they were not ubiquitous. The face-to-face business / sales culture here means the tech products that spread are not necessarily the good ones.

peoplefromibiza3• 3 years ago

so you basically want take out outside your home.

Japanese do that because eating out is cheap enough that it is an option to go there to just eat, not rarely alone, but it's absolutely not common to go to the restaurant to be left alone.

all the things you mentioned as unpleasant are part of the reason why people gather to eat together

ApolloFortyNine2• 3 years ago

Who gathers together to wait for the waiter to bring the check?

numpad03• 3 years ago

Just gimme that tablet, I hate QR but I wouldn’t mind poking that badly done HTML on Android 6, it just works better. Also feeds us food for nomikai thoughts to discuss what happens if we hit “Send” with “x99: ¥0 - Test Food Please Ignore” on the order.

kragen• 3 years ago

but if customers won't use our qr code menus then how are we going to charge iphone users higher prices

CGamesPlay• 3 years ago

The absolute worst menu experience I ever had was the Newark airport. All restaurants appear to be required to place tablets on the tables, which display a QR code that I have to scan on my phone, which requires me to create an account to order, does not accept cash, and has the audacity to ask for a tip. I flagged down a server to ask if I could just order directly, but apparently that's not allowed. I ended up going to Starbucks and getting a croissant, because I guess they had enough clout to not get roped into the mandatory ordering system.

inhumantsar• 3 years ago

Classic Newark.

throwawaaarrgh• 3 years ago

I think they're trying to "scale" out order-taking to sell more. But interestingly it seems like they screw up the order more than if they took it from you in person.

Reason0778• 3 years ago

I’m all for QR code ordering (and even better, QR code payment!). With a well thought out, streamlined UX, it can be a great timesaver. But it needs to be optional: trying to force it on everyone is just crazy.

hallway_monitor• 3 years ago

I agree with this. After entering my card into Toast once, now from any restaurant I can scan the code, enter my tip amount and I'm done. So much better than using either cash or a card.

xp84• 3 years ago

Similarly the online ordering for pickup sites that have sprung up to power the “non-DoorDash/Uber” option that restaurants want you to use. I like them, I like the usually not-inflated prices, but wish they would (A) be a fast, simple UI that works, and (B) stick to Apple/Google Pay and ask for no other info. No I don’t want to create a password or sign up for your newsletter!

naravara3• 3 years ago

Why would we do QR code payments in a world where NFC payment flows exist and are well established?

fmasood• 3 years ago

China has the best adaptation of this trend that I have seen. Simple UIs with no registration, and direct payment with Alipay and Wechat. Seamless and helps with the language barrier as well.

winrid9• 3 years ago

In many cases you probably never even have to leave Wechat. That's assuming you even needed your phone at all and the waiter didn't just scan your face to pay.

Keyframe• 3 years ago

Hah, I thought I was the only one! You sit in-front of that tablet at EWR and fiddle around.. I thought it might be due to a lot of people/orders, but places are always available. It's not Heathrow-like lines to enter restaurant.

clbrmbr• 3 years ago

All restaurants appear to be required to place tablets on the tables

All the shops (except Starbucks) are operated by a single company: OTG. They are absolutely swimming in the monopoly dividend. There are several such airports in USA.

ekianjo5• 3 years ago

How is that legal not to accept cash?

aeoliun• 3 years ago

I believe as long as the place of business is not a government agency, they are not obligated to accept all payment types.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

OJFord• 3 years ago

Not that familiar with the US, but presumably (just because it seems reasonable, and is the case here) they don't have to serve you at all (err, as long as it's not discriminating on grounds of a protected characteristic) so it would be weird for the law to require accepting cash when it also allowed them to nominally comply with that but then refuse to serve anyone who wouldn't pay by card?

ward• 3 years ago

I hate Newark airport so much because of this. Even worse, as a non-American just visiting, I tend to not have mobile data stateside. The wifi is pretty shit in many spots, I've had to literally leave one place because I could not get a wifi signal to even order and the staff refused to help. All this nonsense while there is a tablet right in front of me! Stupid company that does this, stupid airport that allowed a company to do this.

alwaysbeconsing3• 3 years ago

Newark is unquestionably one of the worst airports in the country. It seems to be carefully designed to make people feel unwelcome. It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett book where a building had been constructed in the shape of a demonic rune so that people moving around would activate it as if it were an evil prayer wheel.

_fat_santa• 3 years ago

I had an experience at Newark where I sat down an opened one of the mobile menu's only for a 30 second ad to start playing, the server told me "oh yeah just watch the ad and you can order after that". Like really? I'm already paying way over what the food would normally cost and you guys have the audacity to stuff an ad in front of me before I even have the privilege.

jamal-kumar3• 3 years ago

Nice I will never fly through here ever in my life and will pay like 300$ extra just to avoid it in the future if I have to. Thanks for the tip, that is actually super useful.

NotYourLawyer• 3 years ago

Reading this has made me unreasonably angry.

throw-ru-9382• 3 years ago

If you're paying, you're still the product.

seanhunter• 3 years ago

If it makes you feel any better, Newark's restaurant ordering system was terrible right from when they replaced all the restaurants and added those IPads at every seat even before they threw QR codes into the mix. I wrote a blog post about it in around 2014 or so (ignore the update date - that was me resurrecting the blog after a server failure) https://www.uncarved.com/articles/falafel/

jjav• 3 years ago

Absolutely. Newark airport is a food desert disaster because of this. I've learned that if I need to stop through Newark, always buy enough food for the layover at the previous airport since it's impossible to get anything in Newark. Thanks for the Starbucks tip, I hadn't noticed that (as I don't drink coffee).

threeseed• 3 years ago

In the US.

It is still very popular throughout Asia Pacific and even starting its journey in places like South Korea and Japan who have had alternative ways of ordering food.

expertentipp2• 3 years ago

We'll need your phone number and email. Here are the terms and conditions. Expecting mobile website, what kind of weirdo are you?! Download our app or Facebook. Pay with our credits, minimum recharge amount is 20 EUR. The balance expires after 12 months. We gamified the UI to piss you off even more. Enjoy!

walterbell• 3 years ago

The bar dropped its coded menus in summer 2021, “the moment that it was OK for us to go back to a proper menu,” he said. His main objection to them? “A menu is a window to the soul of the restaurant, and a QR code has no soul.”

Nice intro phrase.

In the past 3 years of requesting 3-D menus, they were usually available. Otherwise, a Socratic menu emerged from conversation with staff or patrons.

HelixEndeavor• 3 years ago

last time I encountered this, I had my phone on me, but had no cell signal in the area and the restaurant had no public wifi. I asked my server for a physical menu and they brought me a goddamn iPad with the brightness locked to max in a dimly lit restaurant. Absolutely awful.

sneak3• 3 years ago

I don't carry payment cards with me and pay with cash everywhere I go.

I refuse to provide PII to strangers to buy food.

These were terrible and I'm glad they are going away.

Normalize not needing a smartphone or a payment card to exist in society.

Freak_NL3• 3 years ago

Even though I pay with a debit card most of the time, I still refuse to frequent card-only places exactly for that reason. Having a smartphone on you should never by a requirement to participate in society.

boxed• 3 years ago

A dining innovation that once looked like the future has worn out its welcome with many restaurateurs, customers and servers who say it takes the joy out of dining.

This starts out bad. I don't think the process of talking to waiter first, and at the end trying to wave someone down so I can just pay to get out of there, is the "joy of dining".

I want to eat and talk to whoever I am with, not talk to the waiter and wait for my bill.

nicbou2• 3 years ago

It's nice not to look at screens sometimes. QR menus can take you out of it.

kritr2• 3 years ago

I wish more restaurants used an NFC tag encoded with an image / svg, instead of downloading it over the web. This was I wouldn’t have the initial issue of haphazardly attempting to scan the QR code, and no delays having to wait for spotty LTE to resolve itself. Not sure about the logistics here as far as how much data NFC tags hold.

jerjerjer• 3 years ago

1 Kb is the limit, so a text it is.

MagnumOpus• 3 years ago

If you encode an image of the menu into a QR code/NFC tag, you do not have the main advantage of a QR code -- being able to update the menu centrally without reprinting it. At that point you might as well stick a menu on the table rather than a QR image/NFC.

kritr2• 3 years ago

While less than ideal, you could always re-encode the tags right?

tokamak• 3 years ago

I love QR menus, I live in Asia though.

agtech_andy• 3 years ago

I wish this was the case in Turkey, where I am currently living.

But it seems like QR menus are one way to handle inflation and changing prices for the restaurants.

I hate QR menus with a passion, but I also feel for the restaurants who would otherwise have to print new menus every few months.

dt3ft• 3 years ago

I built a simple service just for cases like these. You upload a pdf, get a qr code for it and you can re-upload the same pdf again and again while the qr code remains unchanged. I don’t know if the pricing is too high for Turkish market though: https://pdf2qrcode.com

egorfine6• 3 years ago

In Ukraine, this is a trend that is now in nearly 100% of venues, and it works nothing short of perfectly.

You flip through the menu on your phone and then order with a waiter. When done, you pay online via Apple Pay or whatever you want. Instantly and with tips.

Just a couple of companies do provide this service here in Ukraine and both managed to get the UI/UX just right so the experience is excellent.

Visiting Europe, I see so many absolutely brain-damaged implementations of online menus that I have to ask myself whether the developers ever used their product or if they are just dead inside people.

insaider• 3 years ago

What are the companies? Interested to see their UI/UX

practice9• 3 years ago

One of them could be https://expz.monobank.ua/ which fits the description.

Not aware of the others

DecoySalamander• 3 years ago

Virtually every QR code menu I've encountered in Ukraine used https://choiceqr.com/

egorfine6• 3 years ago

So, yeah: The two mentioned companies do indeed have close to 100% market share. Both have excellent UI/UX.

ilyt2• 3 years ago

But the company implementing it was the cheapest!

topranks• 3 years ago

Yeah I prefer a paper menu but I’ve never really had a problem using it.

giarc• 3 years ago

When done right, they can be awesome. I was at a local restaurant that had a good system. The QR code was connected to the actual table, as in they knew what physical table I was at. Therefore if I wanted another drink, I just opened my phone, hit the button and it was brought out 1 minute later. I didn't have to wait for a staff member, flag them down, ask for what I want, then wait for my drink.

I could also request a staff member to the table (if I preferred to talk in person). It kept a running tab of my bill and at any time I could just pay online and walk away. The feeling was like the first time just getting out of an uber and walking away. Again, I didn't have to flag down a staff member, ask for the bill, get the bill, ask for "the machine", wait for them to return, tap my credit card etc etc. It was all very well done.

Unfortunately, most QR code menus are just a link to their mobile site. It has 0 added functionality.

mplanchard2• 3 years ago

So one or two companies get to know where everyone in Ukraine eats, how often, and how much they spend? No thanks.

egorfine6• 3 years ago

Well, the main QR code menu service provider is conveniently one of the main banks in Ukraine and it's not an evil company.

But yes, concern is valid. But yes, they know anyway because you pay online.

lisasays3• 3 years ago

You flip through the menu on your phone and then order with a waiter. When done, you pay online via Apple Pay or whatever you want. Instantly and with tips.

And if you don't have a phone -- you starve to death?

egorfine6• 3 years ago

Preferably.

Or you can resort to a paper menu and/or cash payments both of which are always readily available.

ano-ther• 3 years ago

Was just in Sweden where our local office has a vending machine.

No buttons on the machine, but a QR code. Leads to an app download. Installed. The menu is only visible after creating an account. Created account. Chose my snack. Asks for Swedish payment system. I don’t have that. Tiny option for credit card. Hope. But only Swedish cards accepted. Arghh.

perryizgr82• 3 years ago

Was just in Sweden where our local office has a vending machine.

There is a chai vending machine in a WeWork I visit sometimes. It has a screen to choose your chai, but you can also scan a QR code. The code simply takes you to a webpage with all the options. One touch on your preferred chai, and it dispenses.

I quickly figured out that the QR code is a regular URL. I can copy it and open it in my home and spam the buttons and waste their chai all day long.

I didn't do it, but I could.

sofixa4• 3 years ago

I quickly figured out that the QR code is a regular URL. I can copy it and open it in my home and spam the buttons and waste their chai all day long.

I was just thinking how useful it would be to be able to preorder from your desk/on the way to the vending machine, but indeed, it sounds easily abusable.

ekianjo5• 3 years ago

So the whole point is to prevent you from buying things?

CrampusDestrus2• 3 years ago

No buttons on the machine, but a QR code. Leads to an app download. Installed. The menu is only visible after creating an account. Created account. Chose my snack. Asks for Swedish payment system. I don’t have that. Tiny option for credit card.

it seems obvious to me:

what can we do to lower operating costs?
remove coins and banknotes from the machines and only allow credit cards, so we don't have to pay people to collect all the money!
ok, so should we install a POS on every machine so that people can pay with the card?
no! that would cost too much! just install a QR code so the customer has to use an app with an account and pay there, so our machine is basically as dumb and featureless as possible!

jacquesm9• 3 years ago

I refuse to use them. There isn't just one reason, but off the top of my head:

- I don't like being tracked

- I don't have a smartphone

- I like to see the prices printed because that makes it much harder to present me with different pricing based on date, my phone or profile

- Dining out is one of the few places where I can get away from computers

- I'll tip as much (or as little) as I see fit

- Places that force you and/or your companions to bring out their phones tend to have those phones on the table (with all of the associated interruptions/cat video sharings/other distractions) for the rest of the meal

Usually I just ask for a paper menu, which quite a few places still have, and if they don't they might have a customer tablet lying around. And if it is forced then I just walk, there usually are plenty of restaurants.

thiht5• 3 years ago

Honestly most of this is tinfoil hat level. I just agree on:

Dining out is one of the few places where I can get away from computers"

if I go to a restaurant it's to be with people, not phones.

Physical menus are way better because they're bigger, more personal (the choice of the materials give a strong feeling for the vibe of the restaurant), more engaging and playful (it's easier to finger point stuff to the people you're with on a menu). All these are strong arguments in favor of a physical menu, there's no need to invent weird conspiracies around QR code menus.

jacquesm9• 3 years ago

Honestly, maybe I know more about how this stuff is used than you.

Hot tip: don't install company specific apps.

amelius• 3 years ago

Honestly most of this is tinfoil hat level.

Or you are very naive about how businesses operate today.

iszomer• 3 years ago

My previous close circle of friends had a restaurant etiquette where we placed our phones (then dumb at the time) in a pile and whomever picks theirs up from notifications or answered a call, they would foot the entire bill plus the tips.

sumtechguy• 3 years ago

That list seems very reasonable. All of those things are possible (and done). I walked into one store a few years ago. They matched me to my phone and started sending me text messages in the store for discounts on different floors (and that was 15 years ago). If there is a way to grift a bit of extra cash. There will be someone willing to code it up.

For me in this case it is readability. My eyes decided in the past couple of years to go from 20/20 to can not read small print randomly anymore. Especially if I have to switch from dark room to bright phone (most restaurants). It seems okish if I am already in a bright area.

fwungy3• 3 years ago

You understand that an LLM running against a corpus of your collected online presence and payments would be able to make astonishing insights into your life and habits, and that anyone who had access to such a tool would have great power over you?

rapnie2• 3 years ago

Plus you come to the restaurant, pay top price for food, for the setting and ambiance.. and the waiter taking the order is part of the experience you buy.

tinsmith2• 3 years ago

They aren't, and I wish we'd stop regurgitating this idea because restaurants use it as a justification to get out of paying servers proper wages. The person at the checkout at my local grocer is just as much "part of the experience" when I buy groceries, but their employer pays for them to be there, as opposed to expecting me to do so. This gaslighting of consumerism as an experience is damaging, and allows the greedy to foist the cost of doing business onto the customer more and more.

chmod775• 3 years ago

I go to restaurants for every lunch break as they're affordable and serve good food in Germany.

I couldn't give a rats ass how they take my order as long as the food arrives timely and tastes good. I'm not buying some mystical pretentious dining experience. I'm buying food and a place to eat it at.

However I do care about not being tracked by my bank or some random app, which is why I pay cash and use paper menus.

earthling81183• 3 years ago

This is the absolute last thing I care about. If they didn't have to be part of the experience I'd rather they not be. Using human language to convey what you want is, at best, an inconvenience. It is slow and error prone. There's no reason they need to take my order.

TechSquidTV2• 3 years ago

From a business point of view, what percentage of customers do not have a smart phone?

jacquesm9• 3 years ago

14% or so in 2022, and dropping every year.

MisterTea• 3 years ago

I can agree with a lot of your points but has there been a proven case of price manipulation or tracking? While the idea of a sliding price scale sounds possible I can't see it happening without a massive backlash from the public. Tracking is much more realistic though I suspect that could be done via credit cards as that is what most people use these days.

ndsipa_pomu3• 3 years ago

I hate QR codes. Well hate might be too strong a word, but it bugs me that they're not human readable and thus can't be validated. It's easy for someone to print out a QR sticker and place it over the official QR code and thus get people to go to a different URL entirely - QR jacking. I'm not aware of any good defense against it other than to not trust QR codes. The better alternative is for the menu to tell you the name of the app and you download it from your choice of app store that you trust.

I quite like ordering from an app if it's well designed, but unfortunately most of them aren't, so you go round in circles trying to figure out how to get the options you want together.

3np• 3 years ago

This can be solved by the app: Present the user with the a choice before acting upon anything scanned.

ndsipa_pomu3• 3 years ago

Would that work just by displaying the URL? Presumably that could be gamed by using a URL shortener, so the user would be none the wiser.

sofixa4• 3 years ago

Having an app for such a scenario sounds wildly unnecessary. A very simple website can and does fill the same role, without requiring a download.

ndsipa_pomu3• 3 years ago

I agree, but try persuading a restaurant/bar chain that they don't need their own app.

thedougd• 3 years ago

I stopped visiting a restaurant near work that insisted on a QR code menu. It linked to a PDF replica of their old paper menu. Pain in the ass zooming in and out and scrolling around trying to find items.

kristianpaul• 3 years ago

““It’s very hard to order a $70 steak off a QR code — or a $200 bottle of wine. It just doesn’t feel right.””

quickthrower22• 3 years ago

Lol probably easier. More abstract on a phone than seeing it on a posh menu.

yrro3• 3 years ago

QR code menus are crap and I prefer not to use them.

You know what's even more crap? Waiting for the bill after eating.

Let me pay my bill by scanning the table's QR code in my own time!

ChrisMarshallNY• 3 years ago

Thank Cthulhu.

What a disaster; especially when you snap the QR, and are immediately shown a massive, full-page ad, that you need to dismiss, before seeing the part of the menu that you don't care about, and then, find out that the designer had no grasp of Information Architecture, as you stumble around, searching for the dish you want.

ishaanbahal• 3 years ago

Reading the comments here, seems like countries have really good integrations with QR menus, like Apple/Google Pay, out here, in India, all we mostly get is a download for a PDF hosted on a Google Drive, that is a bunch of images and is a 50-100 MB download (because why compress?), and then you have to constantly pinch to zoom and pan through the document, I have some 40-50 of them on my phone because when I go again, I won't remember the menu already exists with me, I'll download again.

The ones that are decent are also not that great, the JS code that runs constantly stutters and its basically a delivery menu, allowing you to place orders, seems off putting in dining out.

Have had a hard time convincing waiting staff to give me a physical menu, and I keep hearing a response, we have QR, as if that's making them somehow tech-savvy. Its a restaurant, I don't think you ever need to be tech-savvy, just serve good food. Doubt they'd be able to reduce waiting staff by introducing these tech features anyway.

Worst is McDonald's (IND) attempting to force people to use the large TV touchscreens to place orders, and two or more people (helpers) keep helping you use it and eventually place the whole order for you, and it lacks customizations like no tomatoes etc, so you anyway give up and go to the counter. It's possibly an attempt to reduce work staff, but seems forced on to the customer. And the touch latency is just... resistive touch phones were a lot better.

dkga• 3 years ago

Lotta hate for QR menus. I am not a big fan myself, but here are some advantages:

- sanitary: coming back from the pandemic a lot of people were/are trying to avoid touching stuff other people touch

- menu costs: facilitates adjusting prices. While this may not seem like an advantage, the truth is that if restaurants had the cost of re-printing their menu to accommodate higher prices, they would probably do it in a bump and possibly overshoot to account for the possibility they will have to do it again soon.

- for some restaurants, it also serves as a way to attract certain crowds. For example, a restaurant catering to older people is likely not going to do this, but a hip restaurant vying for a teenager clientele might very well use it as a means of "branding"

roel_v• 3 years ago

Slightly related: I love how in the restaurant of the Lego museum in Billund you order by putting some bricks together in a special format (each dish had it own brick configuration IIRC - maybe it also had something to do with the colors) and then you ordered by having your mini-build scanned by a machine.

emrah• 3 years ago

They are very inconvenient, menus tend to be designed for large display area or maybe i got used to viewing them like that and even phones with larger screens don't have enough screen real estate to look at them comfortably. Not to mention, the ones I've used were not user friendly even if i had a tablet to look at them

whywhywhywhy• 3 years ago

So dumb when you’re handed a menu by a waiter then when you try to order be told to go on a website where you have to sign up and all sorts of rubbish.

One of the more insufferable ideas from the long line of dumb Covid ideas that solved nothing.

lxgr• 3 years ago

It's definitely solved some things for the restaurant, just not for the customer.

gargs• 3 years ago

I appreciate the QR code menus in busy spots in Amsterdam (almost every terrace when the weather is nice). It means I could spend more time with family instead of standing in a line with people fumbling around. Service usually sucks anyway, and so the less time I could spend in line ordering the better! The PDF links are useless, but busy places will often link to a portal that also allows ordering, paying, customizing, and sometimes even has a quick repeat option for drinks. It's easier for the business (they don't have to explain the menu to everyone in the line) and also reduces friction for customers; who doesn't have a phone anyway, especially those with kids.

While there might be some tracking or what not, it's probably less harmful than all the other tracking going on, including even the carrier's own systems.

0gravitas• 3 years ago

QR codes are conducive to dining use cases where automation is desirable. For instance, QR codes would fit in with the old automat model [1]. A more modern example might be Chinese restaurants, where the food (i.e. temperature, taste, price) is more important than the experience (e.g. rude but fast waiters are fine).

In use cases where the experience is an important component, such as the steakhouse example from the article, QR codes can be a net negative. Automation might not be desirable there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

kmod• 3 years ago

The bar on my block (NYC) takes it a step further: they require you to install an app to see the menu. So I guess it can always be worse?

leecarraher• 3 years ago

if i could order the food from the digital menu, and pay, then I'd be on board as a nice value add. Otherwise it's just a cheap cost cutting measure that restaurants ignore or are ignorant of, the tracking implications of having a 3rd party aggregator know what food i like and where I am.

FooBarBizBazz• 3 years ago

The quality of the experience depends on the quality of your phone.

It's kind of like suburbia and drive-throughs: If you just assume everyone owns a nice car and drives everywhere, then it makes sense. Nevermind the pedestrian over there.

So if you want to make everything awkward for the people who haven't dropped $1k for an iPhone, this is a good way to do it. It keeps the poors and the old folks away.

mplanchard2• 3 years ago

Even if you just hang onto an old iPhone for a long time (I still use my 6s), these sorts of “smartphone-required” activities become more and more painful every year.

I would honestly recommend everyone, especially on this site, use a cheap android or an old iphone from time to time to see what the experiences you’re building are like for the large subset of people who don’t upgrade to the newest iphone every year.

throw7• 3 years ago

Honestly, I don't like anything that requires me to have a smartphone to use it. By all means, have it as an option; I scrutinize it more intently and am not generally gonna use/buy/like it.

About qr-code menus, there's a place that went fully online only (app required) to order their food. They don't have a kiosk on site either last I checked. It's really weird from a business sense to just cut off customers without smartphones.

AdmiralAsshat2• 3 years ago

Thank God. QR menus are garbage.

The most frustrating thing about them is that many restaurants don't have their own website, and simply host the PDF on some third-party website, often through a URL shortener. So scanning a restaurant's QR code yields an obfuscated link that, when opened, immediately triggers a download of a PDF menu.

That's shady AF from a security perspective, and we should not be normalizing it.

olliecornelia• 3 years ago

I much preferred a PDF to some dogshit website.

jamal-kumar3• 3 years ago

Weren't people slapping malicious stickers over qr codes to infected versions of pdf menus fishing around for old android phones?

brianwawok• 3 years ago

Yes, they man in the middled my menu download. They told me that Beth's Salad had no chicken, but it really had chicken.

Ajedi32• 3 years ago

Your intuition about the (in)security of PDFs is outdated. 2000s era Adobe Reader on Windows XP may have been a security nightmare, but a modern PDF app running on a mobile phone OS with bulit-in application sandboxing and a fine-grained permissions system definitely isn't.

naravara3• 3 years ago

It's less about PDFs specifically and more about normalizing the behavior where people just scan QR codes off stickers and then download and execute whatever arbitrary file the page wants to serve them.

pavon• 3 years ago

After reading these comments I am very grateful that I have never seen any of this garbage. The main places here that use the QR menus are those reinvented food courts (don't know the hip new name). With those you order through the website, it texts you when the food is ready, and you go pick it up. Some of them make you pay at the website and other you pay when you pickup. The advantage is that that you get to spend more time together at the table socializing rather than dispersed standing in line at various restaurant stalls. The downside of course is that you then get text spams after leaving.

How do those PDF menus even work? Do they have a waiter come around and take your order? Do you order up front and the QR menu is just a convenience in addition to a large menu sign?

AdmiralAsshat2• 3 years ago

Depends on the chain. At one restaurant, the waiter still came to your table to take the order.

At another, the restaurant's entire menu was online and expected you to place the order through the website so that it was nearly indistinguishable from a carry-out/DoorDash order. The only difference was that you specified a table number in the order if you were dining in.

gwbas1c3• 3 years ago

The article missed the reason why QR code menus failed by a mile

One reason is etiquette. Everyone knows it’s rude to take a phone out at a table, but that’s what a digital menu demands.
Still, he said, more dynamic QR-code menus that allow a customer to order and pay without waiting for a server are gaining in popularity. In the first quarter of this year, the number of businesses signing up and actively using the service grew 37.6 percent over the last quarter of 2022, he said.

QA code menus failed for three very, very obvious reasons:

1: It's very hard to make a working web site when you're not tech savvy. Restaurants are not "tech" businesses. Many QR menus were difficult to operate, difficult to navigate, and difficult to read. I often found them so confusing that I asked for a paper menu.

2: Tiny menus (because of a tiny phone screen) suck.

(edit) 3: It's actually very rude and insulting to force someone to "learn tech" on the fly. It has little to do with if the patron is tech-savvy. Because it takes a long time to debug tech and get out of the problems that I listed in point #1, it's really insulting, as a patron, to get forced to endure a half-baked website when a low-tech paper menu works perfectly.

aembleton• 3 years ago

There are third parties that make the websites such as ChatFood: https://www.chatfood.io/order-at-table

gwbas1c3• 3 years ago

The most important part of being tech savvy is being savvy about choosing your vendor.

astrea2• 3 years ago

#1 I saw a lot. Word documents hosted in private Google Drive accounts, mobile-unfriendly websites, etc.

grishka2• 3 years ago

A website? You had actual websites? We got mostly PDFs of paper menus. And they would often give you an actual paper menu if you asked.

Everyone forgot about digital menus fairly quickly after it became clear that covid doesn't spread through surfaces though.

naravara3• 3 years ago

A website? You had actual websites? We got mostly PDFs of paper menus. And they would often give you an actual paper menu if you asked.

Not just any website. Often it sends you straight to some online ordering portal like Toast or Doordash. And this bring all the slow performance and pop-ups and adware that implies. Very fun to try to load these bloated web apps when you have 1 bar of cell signal.

flangola7• 3 years ago

Many restaurants I patronize still use QR by default, including very high-end restaurants.

Reused menus were always a gross idea so I'm on board with this.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan• 3 years ago

See, I actually usually preferred the PDF menus to websites. Usually traditional menus are laid out in a really intuitive way that groups items logically, flows, and gently guides you to the better dishes.

When it's a website, it's often lousy long lists where you can only see 3 or 4 things at a time, have to scroll super far back up and down to compare things, and have no idea what the restaurant is nudging you to order.

dylan604• 3 years ago

> One reason is etiquette. Everyone knows it’s rude to take a phone out at a table, but that’s what a digital menu demands.

I disagree with the everyone knows part. In certain age groups, I don't think they actually consider it rude to be glued to their phone regardless of location. Whether I agree with them or not, social norms evolve.

psychlops• 3 years ago

I don't think it's age groups as much of classes of people. Certain people of all ages are glued to a screen and certain people have manners.

gwbas1c3• 3 years ago

It's perfectly acceptable to take a phone out at a table everywhere I've traveled.

It's rude to be glued to your phone everywhere I've traveled; or to talk on a phone during a meal.

Which is also why I said TFA missed the reason by a mile. "Everyone knows it’s rude to take a phone out at a table" isn't true at all; and demonstrates that the author is out of touch with the general public's relationship with tech.

phkahler• 3 years ago

I'll add that they better have open WiFi just to be sure everyone can actually access the menu.

I was on a wifi-only plan during covid and QR menus absolutely sucked.

kodah• 3 years ago

It's actually very rude and insulting to force someone to "learn tech" on the fly. It has little to do with if the patron is tech-savvy.

I'm glad you said this. Our industry is full of people who quantify that their job is "easy". We have a history rife with these assertions, including a period of time where we thought everyone would want to code and that we were just trailblazers. I think that hypothesis is becoming less and less true in interesting ways every day. The most I've seen is people interacting with very facade levels or niche implementations of languages to do their jobs. Even then, those are mostly scientific fields to begin with.

indymike• 3 years ago

Reason for failure:

Ordering takes longer with QR than saying:

I'd like a double bacon cheesburger, extra bacon, lettuce and tomato on the side with a side of fries and medium sprite in a large cup.

bux93• 3 years ago

One problem a QR-menu solves is that at least there is always a menu at hand, and you don't have to ask some-one for the menu, or have them take it away.

If you have physical menus, you should ALSO have a QR menu, just to make sure that people can order (additional) dishes and drinks without having to ask or hunt for a menu first.

And don't get me started on multiple physical menus that look the same externally, but one is the wine list, the other is only for lunch, etc.

BWStearns• 3 years ago

I think the biggest issue with them is the experience and/or performance is almost always dogshit. If switching between menu sections can take an arbitrary amount of time or just straight up fail I'm not going to have a good experience. If you load a poster sized 500MB PDF onto my 5.4 inch screen then I can spend my evening scrolling around looking for the dish I think I remembered seeing.

I feel like every SaaS provider in this space just had a really low bar for "minimum" in MVP and never bothered improving it through the whole pandemic.

taylodl• 3 years ago

“If they had a choice, I would say, 90 percent of customers would say: ‘I’d just rather place my order with you.’”

I stopped reading at that point because they're conflating two very different ideas. It's one thing to have a QR menu, it's another thing to have a contactless ordering system. Most of the restaurants in my area have QR code menus, almost none of them have a contactless ordering system - the server takes your order. A lot of those same restaurants bring a payment device to your table instead of a bill so you can take care of your bill when you're ready.

It works great.

zbrozek• 3 years ago

Around here the overlap is nearly perfect, so I didn't bat an eye when the author treated them as the same thing. And from my table, they're both annoying and undesirable.

tpoacher• 3 years ago

Lots of good criticisms here, but I'm surprised I haven't seen my main pain point here.

My main beef is when a restaurant has no paper menu, and when you attempt to scan the QR code it takes you to a portal, where you have to REGISTER/SIGN-IN to see a menu.

Nuh-uh. F you and your dodgy dark pattern data mining crap. I'm eating somewhere else.

curiousllama• 3 years ago

The number of times I’ve tried to scan a QR code menu only to realize I have no service is shocking.

Like, a basement bar should be aware pretty quickly why everyone seems to be sharing a single phone for the menu - it’s the only one that loads!

taeric2• 3 years ago

I didn't realize one of the larger Luddite revolutions of my time, would be how folks want to order food when they go out.

Are there some annoyances with implementations? Of course. I've also had terrible cashiers before. YMMV is true of the old and the new.

clint• 3 years ago

I like the QR-code menus.

politician• 3 years ago

I mainly hate when online ordering websites invite or strongly suggest that you create an account.

throw-ru-9382• 3 years ago

In Beirut, almost every place that's not a hole-in-the-wall falafel joint has a QR menu. It was sad to see just how much society has bent to cope with the crazy inflation.

jimt1234• 3 years ago

The QR-code menus lack personal interaction, which I actually enjoy in a restaurant. I realize that, functionally, 75% of servers offer nothing over a QR-code menu, but for me, the 25% makes up for it by recommending a good dish or explaining the "spice level", stuff like that. (Pro tip: when you eat at a Sichuan restaurant, and the server tells you it's spicy, believe him! LOL)

I'm an introverted dude, but QR-code menus just feel like I'm eating a take-out meal, but dining in, which is weird.

laverya• 3 years ago

Something I've found depressingly common with QR code menus is the inability to translate them. Either they're a downloadable PDF, or they're some javascript abomination that Chrome won't translate.

At least with a paper menu I can point Google Translate at it and get something understandable back!

egberts1• 3 years ago

Went to a restaurant in BWI and saw this Q-code, tried it using iPhone Safari.

cricket

Asked for hard menu, they said "we don't have them any more". Later learned that people toss these hard menu into the trash when confronted with Q-code offer.

Sounds like an active protests going on in form of a Denial-of-Service (via deprivation of hard menus).

jwithington• 3 years ago

i love QR-code menus, especially if i can place my order and pay through there.

it's not rude. it's ultra-convenient; you don't have to wait on service. i will continue to scan.

ingvar77• 3 years ago

Just letting you know, that here in Tbilisi (Georgia) it’s in every single restaurant and to be honest it’s awesome. You can see the latest version, pictures, you can pick the language. It’s a pity it’s not possible to order and pay. That would be awesome. I think paper menus are only needed in higher end places where you go for “experiences” and not to dinner

k3nx2• 3 years ago

Pre 2015. Boss wants a banner printed with some QR code. I state we should also include the URL, because no one knows what a QR code does until it's scanned. Boss disagreed. Android had an exploit at the time with #* codes that would brick the phone. Generated a QR code based on that exploit. Had a "dummy" banner printed. Had the boss test it. The phone went blank and it was a brick after that. The URL was included in the banner. With how easy this was to pull off, I haven't wanted to scan a QR code since. You are free to make your own choices, you don't get to choose the outcome.

sdtransier• 3 years ago

What was your boss's reaction to having their phone get bricked?

k3nx2• 3 years ago

I don't recall so I'm guessing it wasn't a big deal. Conjecture: The department had stacks of phones for loaner use, maybe they just got a replacement. I remember having several on my desk to play with at the time.

aSockPuppeteer• 3 years ago

All I want is to be able to order from wherever I am and have it be there at a table at a designated time. Call it pre-ordering+reservation or pro-ordering.

I don’t need any pageantry at 95% of restaurants by the waiter or waitress then long wait times while they prepare the food.

Some restaurants allow it and will ask you to pay first, some will act like you are from another galaxy, and others aren’t sure how to approach the situation.

patlucky• 3 years ago

It very common im China. Qr code link to websites and online payment. They even start a timer to track wait time.

kebsup• 3 years ago

In Czech republic, most restaurants use the same native app, which works much better then home-made irresponsive websites I've seen used abroad.

The QR-code menu is being shown the door

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