Yes. I hate having to scan and navigate a menu on my phone.
12 thoughts on “Dear Restaurants”
I hate QR code menus, I refuse to use them, if they push I tell them my battery is dead.
The thing I hate more is “sorry we don’t take cash” Wait a minute, it says right on the bill, This note is legal tender for all debts public and PRIVITE! Even worse I was recently trying to enter a National Park that refused to take cash. The US government won’t even take the money they print!
I’d rather use QR codes than nasty unwashed menus. Although I do consider the menu a useful indicator of general cleanliness and competence. If I see more than a speck of old food or dirt on the menu I go somewhere else.
My wife is a bit of a clean freak and always passes the hand sanitizer after handling the menus. That said, I know QR codes are as much about cost as they are about cleanliness. Can we compromise and have at least one hardcopy menu per table?
Wow, the comments over there bashing phones. There are things I don’t like about phones but they are outweighed by all the benefits. I bet these people are still filling up people’s voicemails instead of sending a superior form of communication, a text message.
“Here, download this” for something found in a public place with no other provenance. Someday that will end so well.
Most menus are at least the size of typing paper, and aren’t using tiny gray text on a light gray background. (Or better yet, blue on dark gray.) And the apps seem to take all the superfluous “branding” from those larger pages and cram them into the limited screen area.
(Before my permanent vacation started, I developed iOS apps, and it was a constant fight with product management to keep the branding and the gimmicks to a minimum. A fight that seems to have been lost based on the appearance of most apps.)
“Here, download this” for something found in a public place with no other provenance. Someday that will end so well.
Nothing quite like a $10,000 tip is there?
Next thing will be the return of the Automat! Fine dining will be like the company break rooms I ate in the 80’s. The 15$ Minimum Wage campaigners are unleashing the whirlwind.
Hmph! I remember those going out of style about the time McDonalds started catching on. Just old enough to remember eating at one when I was a kid, cause my parents thought I’d enjoy the experience. It was “ok”.
If they were to do that today they’d just f*ck it up. With freeze dried food you pull out of the slot, inject with water at the injection spigot and then stand in line to use the microwave.
I liked Automats as a kid. Also liked the old snackbar on Grafenwoehr. Sunday pick me up a Stars & Stripes and have a bowl of chili and a grilled ham & cheese sammich…. Last time there it had been redone and was all prepackaged…stuph. No more cook to order. I had a sad. Probably gone entirely now…
It’s why hand sanitizer was invented. But realistically if you need it after handling your menu, you might want to consider another venue as per FC’s comment above. Note that finer restaurants usually print their menus on paper even if the holder is faux leather and don’t enshrine them with laminate. Also, if your waitperson comments on how delicious your meal looks when serving it, head for the door…
One thing to consider here is that this is ideal in high inflation circumstances. The hard copy analogue would be menus that price by category (like your steak is say “D” and you have to look to see how many units of currency “D” items are presently priced at). Meanwhile with an online solution, they just need to update it once.
I hate QR code menus, I refuse to use them, if they push I tell them my battery is dead.
The thing I hate more is “sorry we don’t take cash” Wait a minute, it says right on the bill, This note is legal tender for all debts public and PRIVITE! Even worse I was recently trying to enter a National Park that refused to take cash. The US government won’t even take the money they print!
I’d rather use QR codes than nasty unwashed menus. Although I do consider the menu a useful indicator of general cleanliness and competence. If I see more than a speck of old food or dirt on the menu I go somewhere else.
My wife is a bit of a clean freak and always passes the hand sanitizer after handling the menus. That said, I know QR codes are as much about cost as they are about cleanliness. Can we compromise and have at least one hardcopy menu per table?
Wow, the comments over there bashing phones. There are things I don’t like about phones but they are outweighed by all the benefits. I bet these people are still filling up people’s voicemails instead of sending a superior form of communication, a text message.
“Here, download this” for something found in a public place with no other provenance. Someday that will end so well.
Most menus are at least the size of typing paper, and aren’t using tiny gray text on a light gray background. (Or better yet, blue on dark gray.) And the apps seem to take all the superfluous “branding” from those larger pages and cram them into the limited screen area.
(Before my permanent vacation started, I developed iOS apps, and it was a constant fight with product management to keep the branding and the gimmicks to a minimum. A fight that seems to have been lost based on the appearance of most apps.)
“Here, download this” for something found in a public place with no other provenance. Someday that will end so well.
Nothing quite like a $10,000 tip is there?
Next thing will be the return of the Automat! Fine dining will be like the company break rooms I ate in the 80’s. The 15$ Minimum Wage campaigners are unleashing the whirlwind.
Hmph! I remember those going out of style about the time McDonalds started catching on. Just old enough to remember eating at one when I was a kid, cause my parents thought I’d enjoy the experience. It was “ok”.
If they were to do that today they’d just f*ck it up. With freeze dried food you pull out of the slot, inject with water at the injection spigot and then stand in line to use the microwave.
I liked Automats as a kid. Also liked the old snackbar on Grafenwoehr. Sunday pick me up a Stars & Stripes and have a bowl of chili and a grilled ham & cheese sammich…. Last time there it had been redone and was all prepackaged…stuph. No more cook to order. I had a sad. Probably gone entirely now…
It’s why hand sanitizer was invented. But realistically if you need it after handling your menu, you might want to consider another venue as per FC’s comment above. Note that finer restaurants usually print their menus on paper even if the holder is faux leather and don’t enshrine them with laminate. Also, if your waitperson comments on how delicious your meal looks when serving it, head for the door…
One thing to consider here is that this is ideal in high inflation circumstances. The hard copy analogue would be menus that price by category (like your steak is say “D” and you have to look to see how many units of currency “D” items are presently priced at). Meanwhile with an online solution, they just need to update it once.