Tonight I find common bond with the conservative movement in the US on a development that's a threat to all of us. I speak, of course, about QR-code menus in restaurants:
QR-code menus are annoying, but not exactly the greatest civilizational threat of our time. But there’s a serious aspect of this, too: They not only represent a holdover from a pandemic era that we should be leaving in the rearview as expeditiously as possible — they also are another concession to the digitization of American life, replacing the world of the physical and material with an emaciated, online substitute. For that reason, and so many others, we should demand a return to the real thing. Nothing less than physical plastic menus will do.
I'll add this: not only do online menus suck because they're hard to read on a cell phone, but like most technological "improvements" they only work when they're in the right mood. I calculate, based on extensive research, that they operate properly only 64.3% of the time.¹ That's not nearly good enough.
Note that I am fully supportive of online menus in general. They're a great tool for checking out a restaurant beforehand to see if they offer the kind of food your group will like. I just don't want them at the restaurant.
POSTSCRIPT: Yes, I know that restaurants will give you a paper menu if you ask for one. But for how long?
ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: Before I get a round of "OK Boomer" from the young 'uns, a word of warning: eventually your eyes will deteriorate too and cell phones won't be the delightful experience they are now. Even with bifocals.
On second thought, by the time you're 60 medical science will probably be able to provide you with bionic eyes. Damn.
¹This is a joke. But it does roughly represent my personal experience based on maybe a dozen usages.
Counterpoint: the thrill of operating the Coca-Cola Freestyle at the local AMC Theatre with your phone is unsurpassed.
The restaurants near you must suck at doing their menus then, because around here the QR codes always point to a PDF - which you can pinch to zoom in/out as much as you want/need to for your eyes.
If a phone screen is still too small, try a tablet? Or ask for a hard copy. Minor inconvenience, sure, but I guess that's what all grumpy gripes boil down to isn't it? Complaining about a minor inconvenience that, in the scheme of things, isn't important.
Some more "with it" places around here are even starting to do mobile ordering at your table via QR code (which has a table number assigned to it), so no more pesky waiting for a server if you don't want to (they seem to check if you want someone to actually serve you or if you'd rather just use the QR mobile order).
i think something is wrong with either some QR apps or with my phone camera because i regularly have an issue with getting directed to the wrong URL. I generally either try a different QR app or just google the restaurant and find the menu manually. and of course i always forget which app was the one that worked and which was the one that screwed up, so i have like 3 or 4 installed at the moment.
I can never get the accursed things to work with my phone period.
Uhhh, I disagree in a way. I guess plastic menu is better in some ways, but that is assuming that the plastic menu has been properly wiped down. I’ve seen how some of those workers “wipe down” a menu, and I can tell that their previous job was not in the NICU of a hospital. I’ll bet that the vast majority of the time, I’d rather touch my phone than the plastic menu. I know my germs. I’ve named each one. I don’t know the previous diner’s germs. (Especially crucial at places like a sports bar, where I was a few hours ago watching the hockey playoffs.)
As long as my iPhone 6 lets me use my fingers to expand what is on the screen, I’m fine with a digital menu. (an iPhone 6, mind you! I’m practically chipping away at a cave wall. I assume the iPhone 13 uses frickin’ lasers to imprint the menu directly on your retina.)
The curmudgeon is right. This needs to stop.
It alienates people and makes some people feel foolish. I don't mind if you keep the QR codes, but the default should be a server coming in with menus. The last thing I want when sitting at a restaurant table and fidgeting with my phone.
Hear, hear! Not all of us want to be plugged in every waking minute of the day.
What you really need to use is the app, managed by Facebook, with notifications and auto-posts to Instagram.
/s
I 100% disagree. I can't see paper menus anyway because it is so dark and the print is so small that I need to bring out the phone anyway with a light and magnifying glass - the QR code menu takes care of this itself. Plus I get the menu right away since it is on the phone. And don't need to ask to see the menu again if I want desert or to change what beer I'm drinking.
A restaurant is dark to hide the ugly food???
Find a different one.
Plus I get the menu right away since it is on the phone. And don't need to ask to see the menu again if I want desert or to change what beer I'm drinking.
I prefer QR, too, for similar reasons. No waiting for a server: order the moment you feel like it (including mid meal, if you want to add drinks or dishes). Not sure about the States, but where I live you can settle your tab, too, via your phone/QR.
I would imagine in the US, the QR system might be a boon for servers, in that they ought to be able handle more covers, thereby increasing tip income. (The whole point of the QR system is to save on labor costs, which is why I suspect Kevin's fighting a losing battle over the long term).
Order tablets at the table vs QR codes?
Good lord. Ok boomer. There are very few restaurants that will absolutely not provide you with a paper menu upon request, mostly because they know not everyone has a cellphone that is charged and will still connect to the internet in their space. And you could simply decide to not eat at those places. Voting with your wallet in the free market and all in the land where capitalism is king.
I mean Jesus. If you feel like you’re suffering under the tyranny of having to ask for a printed menu or suffer straining your eyes to use a QR code… the blind might as well commit suicide now, as they’ve lived their entire lives unable to use any visual display of menus at all.
The QR codes are meh. The real issue is what they continue on to. Ordering via your phone. And paying that way.
In other words, automating out a decent chunk of the front of house labor…
It is my custom to rely on my server to tell me what is good and what is not. If what I order on their recommendation is agreeable, why, then I have an excuse to tip them extra.
Note that I am one of those ex-food service people who waited tables back in the day and as a result of those experiences, now tip twenty-five percent to make up for the jackasses who tip ten. Who, coincidentally, are also to be the ones most likely to be overly famaliar with the waitresses.
Is it ok to go back to normal pre-pandemic tipping?
Oh...found a guide:
https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/money-etiquette/tipping-etiquette-guide
The real issue is what they continue on to. Ordering via your phone. And paying that way. In other words, automating out a decent chunk of the front of house labor…
Are you saying that's a bad thing? Usually when labor-saving technology is invested in, the resulting productivity enhancement is considered a positive.
A good way to raise living standards in the United States is to shift human resources from low-productivity sectors like food service into more productive areas. And those who remain behind as servers are apt to see their incomes increase, because they're more productive (they can handle more diners).
I'm of the opinion there will be some subset, perhaps small, but not trivial, which will need "honest work" of the sort performed by waitpersons and cashiers. And I would rather support them via the slightly higher prices I pay at the restaurant or grocery store (or hardware store or ...) than utilize the self-service checkout or its restaurant equivalent.
It strikes me that in the past, labor-saving advancements enabled not just more efficient production but more/novel production (although more production is itself arguably a mixed bag). Automating retail - restaurants/grocery stores/etc - isn't going to result in more grocery stores or people buying more at the grocery store, and I believe the same will be true for the restaurants.
Overly simplified and flippant, but you cannot have everyone be CEOs.
i agree with "real" menus for restaurants which don't change the menu often. but some change weekly or even daily, which is both wasteful environmentally and a huge pain in the ass for restaurant workers to update and print. also, kevin, you can zoom on those phone menus.
Why do I need to download some random virus filled app to read the code? Why can't my phone just do it?
Also, Kevin, did you replace your phone? I got my p6p. I like it.
i thought newer phones/OS versions on iOS and android do just read the QR with the built in camera app.
Can confirm. My S22+ works this way, just point the camera at the QR code and done. I pin the menus of the places I frequent to my home screen so I don't have to scan ever again.
"They not only represent a holdover from a pandemic era that we should be leaving in the rearview as expeditiously as possible"
Um, need I mention that we are still in "the pandemic era" and many people are still a bit cautious about making believe we're completely out of the woods?
Also, QR codes and other "remote" ordering systems (like automated tableside tablets) predate the pandemic. It was originally (especially in Asia) driven by labor cost concerns. Which is also why the technology isn't going to go away (any more than self-service cashier systems have vanished).
This furthers my contention this is a Plandemic, boosted by the People's Liberation Army to seed the world with their QR technology, just like they are doing with TikTok.
Not everyone carries a phone, me included. I was the head programmer on one of the first four computers that exchanged packets in 1968 or 1969 and I programmed them pretty much every day since then. But I don't carry a cell phone which I consider an adult toy. Paper or plastic menus are fine, thanks.
more power to you if you don't feel like carrying a phone (and don't need one), but i do think it's odd that you characterize portable a device with capabilities of a phone, gps, camera, email client, internet browser, flashlight etc etc as a toy. i see it as the ultimate utilitarian mobile device for daily activities and in an emergency.
A high-tech Luddite! More power to you. I resisted the cell/mobile/smart phone for years but my SWMBO (Spouse Who Must Be Obeyed) was persistent and relentless.
Guess we've all got a little Kaczynski in all of us!
(Also, I am still pissed that, right after I moved to Portland, I was talking to a coupla diners at my local & they tried to claim that all the great serial killers & the like were from the PNW. Even tried to claim Teddy K, which, two things -- Montana is not the Pacific Northwest, but more importantly, Ted was a Chicago Pollack educated at Ann Arbor & Cambridge. Let Chicago have him, especially if the Tylenol poisonings are never getting solved.)
I use a cell phone, but only for voice and text. I do not install apps for services that I can access on a laptop - with superior U/I (I use a tablet for lightweight browsing).
Going out is for relaxing. I frequently leave my phone at home when I go out, because being inaccessible is luxury.
Seems like a crazy way for restaurants to turn away customers, but if me not carrying a phone means you don't want to serve me, I'm more than happy to eat somewhere else.
In time you're going to find your options narrowed as more restaurants (many/most of which can't afford more servers) make the switch. Also, can't you simply turn your phone off when you don't need it (if you want to relax)?
I imagine the surviving standalone, hole in the wall type places will remain non-QR & in some cases non-debit/credit for payment.
But the Cheesecake Factories & Outback Steakhouses, et. al., will have certain mobile expectations for their patrons.
I'll have a serving of QRs, lightly toasted topped with cheddar cheese and bacon. Yummy
Where I live there are almost no QR code menus, and when I do so one they almost never work right. New England in general is about 10 years behind on technology. I don't even bother to try paying for things via smartphone--the failure rate is near 100% if they even offer the option. Carry cash too--lots of places cash only, especially small eateries.
Bring back the automat
Our robot future!
On the contrary, the one and only time I've found myself at a restaurant which expected its customers to use QR codes - it was in Orange County, California, by the way - they had no print menus. Until it occurred to the waitress to get us paper takeout menus, warning that the prices were different.
I would find it impossible to read a menu on a cellphone screen. As for a tablet, that would require having my tablet with me whenever I might spontaneously decide to eat out instead of going home.
What I like electronically is counter service which has been replaced by a large screen offering the menu. It's annoying to wait behind someone else who's perusing the whole thing, but it does assure that they don't copy your order wrong.
What’s a QR code?
I don't know how long it'll take, but you can see there's a convergence point coming between full AR and your daily eyeglasses. We're on track to have the ability to look at a QR code and have a menu pop up in your augmented reality vision. Hopefully by then, there will be robust data protection laws in place, otherwise, everyone including your spouse will know how long you've been staring at someone's butt.
Tom Cruise as John Anderton has just entered the Gap at the DC Promenade in Minority Report.
Exactly. Targeted ads can be scary, especially when they get it wrong. Why am I getting toenail fungus ads on one website? 😬🤮
I’m the same age as you. Kevin and agree with your assessment, boomer to boomer. I will say I’d tolerate them better if restaurants all had decent, free, open Wi-Fi and they didn’t just link to an unoptimized version of their menu. A bit of css goes a long way.
They only fail for me when I forget my phone.
On the other hand, they likely save quite a few trees, which can only be a good thing. Maybe you'd be happy if they put the menu on a Jumbotron.
I am, by the way, in the rump of the baby boom. I'm just not a Luddite.
The thrill of the QR menu and your network doesn't work in that restaurant.
Or the one that doesn't let you zoom in. Or is a giant image you have to pinch zoom drag hunt peck through.
It needs to be text or text adjacent, and there needs to be a local network that holds a cache locally so my network isn't required.
QR menus let the restaurant change prices on the fly, say Fri-Sat night. Or even if the line at the door gets long. Or to get a better table. Surge pricing!