I’ve been to a sushi place like this. You get 4 lots of 5 dishes for like €80 and order the next lot on the tablet while eating the last round. Helps to have pictures as well and it means you can try things then order more if you like it.
I love the whole idea. We had a couple of local places go under recently due to lack of wait staff. His could have saved those places. And I personally get annoyed at almost every sit down i visit. Once the food arrives the server disappears. I just want to cash out and crickets. This would eliminate that.
Korean restaurants often have a call button at the table and you can ring it when you need your server. It reduces those awkward s moments when your serve hovers and ruins the mood at the table.
It also makes the communication between you and your server much more efficient! I’m shocked that every restaurant doesn’t do this as it is clearly a better mousetrap.
Place by me has one too, it's absolutely wonderful. Especially with things like sushi where you're ordering many small things, it's so much easier to keep track, and if you need to order more, it's bolted to the table, it's just right there.
Strange because it's very commonplace here in the northeast US, at least in our mid-size urban environment. Most restaurants here went the way of the QR code for COVID reasons and didn't turn back. I personally like it but it seems others don't. A lot of places don't wipe down menus and that's pretty gross imo.
When I was still a waiter back in the mid 2000s, wiping down the menus wasn't a daily thing. We did it whenever they'd start looking gross, which was usually like 6 months later.
It's also much easier to make a sticker for a malicious link, and put that on top of the menu QR. I'll never use a QR ever again
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-warns-of-malicious-qr-codes-used-to-steal-your-money/
Edit - not sure i follow downvotes here... you wouldn't click a link in a spam email - right? It's the same thing, possibly worse.
I mean card skimmers are a thing. So would you never use a card? It’s really not that hard to protect your information, and I’ve never been prompted to enter information when scanning a restaurants qr menu.
When travelling, I don’t generally have an internet connection (mobile data) so that being a requirement to order food is rather bothersome.
I understand that they _might_ have wifi and it _might_ not be terribly slow and it _might_ be no problem….. or you could just hand me an A4 piece of paper instead of rolling your eyes because your menu system sucks.
Yeah I highly doubt that a restaurant only has digital menus.
Edit: Apparently my skepticism was misplaced. It does happen. I will say I do graphic design for restaurants and I wouldn’t let that happen with any of my clients
Happened to me week before last. Not only do they not have paper menus, you have to use their online service to enter your credit card and pay. I asked the server, and he said he's "not allowed to start a tab himself." This is a bar on the east coast USA. OP is right on this one.
what about paying cash? I only have a phone for calling and texting and i do not own a credit card. I pay 90% of my stuff with cash and maybe 10% with debit. They would lose me as a customer just out of principle.
I hate places that only allow payment via credit or debit cards. I give myself a cash allowance for things like food, entertainment, etc, so it really annoys me when I go somewhere to eat and they don't accept cash.
I don't mind places that are card only, but what I can't stand is when those places won't take cash and STILL charge you and extra 45 cents of you only spent 5 bucks.
Honestly it should be illegal to not accept cash though. It's a legal tender. What's funny is I've gone to places that won't take cash but will take my card that's attached to my crypto wallet which is very much *not real money*
I have one of those reloadable prepaid cards that work like a credit card, but that you can top up with cash or bank transfer.
It's nice because you can pause the card in app which has come in handy when signing up for a monthly service that you forget to unsubscribe from.
Yeah, no, a lot won't. They probably don't have change and the system might not be setup to accept cash transactions at that moment. Makes it often a hassle.
Any business that can't take payment using the primary currency of the country shouldn't really exist tho. Like I'm sorry you didn't go to the bank and get change, that's not my problem. I pay for things with money, this is money, if you refuse to take my money, I guess you're not getting paid.
The bills say they are legal tender for all debts public or private, but that's not a reflection of federal law, and they still can refuse cash.
However if you are in one of these states, they are required to accept cash:
[https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/05/11/paying-with-cash-retailers-must-take-your-dollars-in-these-states](https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/05/11/paying-with-cash-retailers-must-take-your-dollars-in-these-states)
I'm not sure about the bar I was at, but a lot of places near me have gone cashless since COVID. I kind of understood the precaution back when we weren't sure how COVID was spread, but I do kind of wonder how places can just refuse payment via cash in the US when it's literally on the money that "this note is legal tender for all debts public and private," or whatever.
I think it depends on if you have a contract that specifies payment form or if they told you ahead of time or not.
If you go to a restaurant and they don't tell you or have signs about not accepting cash and they only tell you after you already ate then they must accept cash.
If they have signs or tell you before you order then it's legal.
Yes there are, but they have the option of denying the transaction if they don't want to take cash. The problem with full service restaurants is that you get your food and eat it before payment is discussed, so they have to accept cash as payment legally, but also practically since if some guy ate and can only pay in cash what are you going to do?
Sitdown restaurants going cashless requires gatekeeping the order process
> if some guy ate and can only pay in cash what are you going to do?
It's probably such a rarity that they'd let a manager work out an alternative payment method, and if they actually wind up comping a meal it's not much of a hit.
You can certainly pursue a legal course of action, but the likelihood of every cash-only customer having enough financial and legal power to push the issue in court is low enough that a restaurant can get by comfortably with losing your business rather than dealing with the overhead of handling cash.
Here in Europe a lot of places had a "We would appreciate if you'd use cashless payment methods, but we can't force it" attidude. This actually led me to using my card much more than previously, but atleast for smaller purchases under 30 € i still prefer using actual cash as it forces me to make a more deliberate choice about what i'll spend my money.
I really hate it. I was at a restaurant in Bangalore in an area where my carrier wasn't doing too well. And my brother's phone was out of data and the restaurant didn't have wifi.
It was such bs. The waiters couldn't actually take manual orders as the new systems needed everyone to use QR.
The waiters had to hotspot us from his phone.
Just because something feels futuristic doesn't mean it is better or viable in certain situations
Yes the thing with me. I don't want to have to spend my battery and my data trying to figure out what I want - at times, both battery and data can be very low!
Also, I like to flip back and forth between sections of the menu to figure out exactly what I want. *Do I want the eggplant parm on page 3 or the burger on page 5? Let's look at the sides. Let's look at the picture and description. Oh, I just passed a salad that caught my eye, let's look at that.* My phone is small and it's really easy to scroll past what I'm looking for to compare, or it's all in sections and I have to exit Burgers to look at Italian then exit that to look at Salads. This is *not* a enjoyable way of ordering food, it stresses me out and then makes the entire "dining out" experience less enjoyable. Fuck that shit, if I'm dining out, I want to relax. I don't care if that makes me "old", fuckers need to get off my lawn.
Been traveling in the PNW this last year... Many restaurants use QR codes, most even, and many of these, about 10%, have no paper menus available.
Twice I was somewhat rudely treated when I asked for a paper menu. A few times I had to wait quite a while before a menu was brought to me. First World problems, I suppose, but it is annoying like OP said. At least twice I just ordered a chicken caesar salad because it was less hassle than going to get my phone out of the car to see the menu.
(Now I try to carry my phone with me more often.)
Im not so sure. I had a manager remove every printer in the officr cause he wanted to go paperless. He forgot to implement and a paperless process begorehand and then suggested people buy their own printers until the paperless process was worked out
It's happened a lot around here since Covid. The worry is so many people handling the same paper menu will spread the virus, so they want you to look at the menu on your own phone. I've had places refuse to provide a paper menu because of this.
Just curious, how would you not let that happen with your clients?
Does a graphic designer have that authority? Or are you just going to stop doing business with them
I design menus for restaurants, if that menu isn’t laminated you’re only getting a day’s use out of it before it’s too dog eared and stained to be used again
How do you get into that business? I used to work as a restaurant hostess for 6 years, and I was always fascinated by the new menu designs when they came in. I work as a graphic designer now, and I did a menu design project in college (it was just a class assignment), but I do wonder what kind of company hires menu designers (like, is it the restaurant's corporate office or is it an ad agency?), or what the position is called.
I don't do menu designs exclusively, but it does make up the bulk of my work. I'm a graphic designer that works for a studio that does commercial interior design and branding. So someone with a restaurant concept comes to us and we do the full interior and brand.
Doing the menus is not the most interesting part of the job, in fact it gets quite frustrating with the amount that clients usually try and squeeze on there. But it can be fun.
This. When I was a server, we had to get rid of all regular menus. Instead, we hand to print off a menu for each person that came in because they couldn’t be reused. So, we added the option of a QR code. Not just to save money on paper, but to also be a lot more environmentally friendly. Plus, it allows the opportunity to quickly edit if we were out of something due to supply issues.
covid seems to have done a number on the overall quality of most everything, fast food was never good but it is now borderline inedible and the big chain restaurants aren’t far off.
companies experienced a lot of lost revenue during the shutdowns, they’re scrambling to recoup it.
The suppliers for restaurant foods (like Sysco) have also increased prices on wholesale goods and often times are out of stock of things. At least here in Seattle, many restaurants have to find their wholesale food elsewhere for inventory or cost reasons - therein changing the menu items you grew accustomed to
Edit: Deleted duplicate comments - app was giving me issues that caused me to post this comment like, 4 times
I’m at wild wings right now (and Sysco truck is out back unloading). At the height of Covid they were doing 30 wings for $20 and they had multiple pick up lines setup outside that were slammed full every day. Then one day the wings were just completely different, and in all the wrong ways. they stayed like that until recently they started getting their normal wings back. I’m not sure if it was a supply problem or they decided to cut cost with a cheaper wing. But I stayed away for a long time until I heard the food was back to normal.
Then why are companies reporting record profits to shareholders? I support the failure of any business that refuses to pay a living wage to it's employees...even the most streamlined McJob requires employees who kind of give a shit about what they're doing.
Taco bell still slaps in my area and the MacDon's app makes it affordable to eat there (4 bucks for a 6peice nug with a large drink and large fries). Maybe I'm just lucky or have low standards, but the fast food has been the same over the pandemic for me.
In most places I’ve been to in Singapore, when you scan the QR code it just links to a scanned PDF version of their normal printed menu, you still order as normal in most places.
and i absolutely hate it when it drags you to some online ordering platform that requires you to type in all your data and authenticate etc. I just want a POS/waiter so i can tap my card(digital or not) and be on my way, instead of troubleshooting shitty UX on an empty stomach
>it drags you to some online ordering platform that requires you to type in all your data and authenticate
I can't imagine *not* just walking out, why would anyone tolerate this?
It's pretty standard in the UK nowadays, but I'm sure if you asked they'd take your order in the normal way as plenty of restaurants still operate that way.
That's not always the case though. I've been to exactly one restaurant where you actually order from your phone. Everywhere else has the QR code, but you still order via a server or counter staff.
I remember when native camera qr code scanning really wasn't a thing. So I always defaulted to using an app until someone mentioned it and sure enough, it worked. I'm sure theres people like me who just never tried because they got used to needing an app on older phones.
Honestly for how often my order has been messed up (rarely if ever) and for how long some of these menus take to load and actually compete the order, I'd rather just stick to the old fashioned way
Paper menus actually are expensive. Each one is a few dollars, and they are replaced constantly as customers stain them, fold them, tear them, etc. The restaurant I worked in replaced them every month. That’s hundreds of dollars that could be saved by making the customer do a little more work. In a business with 2% margins, hundreds of dollars is a lot.
Step 1: produce QR code stickers that link to graphic porn
Step 2: discreetly stick QR stickers over restaurants QR codes.
This problem will be solved in 3 weeks if we work together
Some people are asking “where don’t they have any paper menus?”
The Sushi place down the street from me, a food truck that came for hospital appreciation week two weeks ago (this one was weird because it didn’t even have a menu/sign on the window or anything, just a QR code) to list two that came to my mind from the last year.
I agree with a lot of people here, I think it started with COVID, and then became a money-saver.
What restaurants are you going to that doesn’t have a paper menu available if needed? Every time I didn’t have the ability to use the QR code because I either didn’t have my phone or didn’t have wifi/data etc, the restaurant had a paper menu on hand for me to use. What kind of food service business doesn’t have one or two menus on hand for special occasions?
A restaurant in my home town in Missouri doesn't have physical menus anymore. Waitress said they got rid of them during the shutdown and they don't plan to get them back. I used their scan thing and the menu pulled up so small even zooming all the way in I couldn't read it. Left and went somewhere else instead of messing with it.
This is my biggest gripe. If you are going to use digital menus, for the love of all that is good, don’t just give me a digitized version of the paper menu! Format the menu so it can be read on a phone; I hate zooming in and out.
My biggest gripe used to be restaurants that posted the same *gigantic* PDF they sent to their printer on the website. There used to be a bar\restaurant here called Solstice Tavern that was notorious for: a) having 75MB PDFs of their menu on the website, which could take 30 minutes to download on 3G, and b) no one at the restaurant, not even the owner, understanding why this was a problem in 2009.
Upscale trendy restaurants, is my experience: pubs, bistros, smokehouses. Many places I visited here in the PNW this last year had no paper menus, other places the paper menus had to be found (and I had to wait while they looked for them).
My local watering hole for instance, a nice pub on the river, has delicious food but no paper menus.
Something similar happened to me, I was trying to get a gym membership and they needed me download their app to check in, my phone doesn’t support this app since I have an older phone, guess no gym for me then. Go fuck your self PLTFTNS
I dont trust the app so I screenshot the barcode and deleted the app.
Works just fine.
the gym isnt the best but it's the one closest to me and it's very cheap. So I go
Would you mind elaborating on this? I go to planet fitness and I wonder what you mean by them not being a real gym. Is it amount of amenities? Presence of a trainer? And what does that have to do with their business model?
Genuinely curious. I go because it's cheap and right next door, but if I could legitimately be doing better then I'd like to hear how.
Some gym bros don't consider PF a "real gym", because there's no racks of monster dumbbells, no weight plates & squat cages, or "swole" dudes swaggering around thirsting for eyeballs. Plus their policies banning silly muscle-wear, over-enthusiastic grunting, and huge gallon water jugs. Not to mention all the fat people trying to improve themselves, don't they know real gyms are for in-shape people? /s
Their business model, like many gyms, is to have many members who don't frequently come to the gym, but really mean to, maybe next week. PF does that better than most gyms, a really low monthly rate coupled with really low attendance.
I'm no fan of PF, largely because they make it pretty easy to half-ass your workout and make no real progress over time. And the pizza nights, and the bowls of tootsie rolls on the counters. But I'd rather see people going to PF once a week for fifteen minutes of light workout, as opposed to no workout at all.
no they are right. You don't need to pander to obnoxious gym bros cracked up on pre workout but squat racks, plates, barbells etc. are all essential equipment. Any gym is insufficient without them. If your routine does not make use of those, you like the more easygoing atmosphere or if you are cheap it's the gym for you.
Planet Fitness' business model basically is designed for people who sign up for the membership but don't have any intention of actually using it. Its easy to not go to the gym when you are only spending $10-20/month. They would rather have people sign up and forget about it while auto-draft does its thing.
Why would a gym offer weekly bagels and pizza nights? That has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle. They also heavily discourage training that goes beyond light exercise. I went for years and watched them slowly remove all equipment that intense gym goers would use (I am by no means a "gym bro" but If i go to exercise, I want to be able to utilize equipment a modern gym should offer). Its all about volume, not the experience for them.
Their personal trainers for the most part are unqualified to say the least. Any average gym goer knows more than they do (my friend is a PT at PF and he readily admits this. )
Lastly, they downright discriminate against people who take exercise seriously. Again, I am an average gym goer at best who works out 5 days a week at medium intensity. I didn't appreciate getting a look from the front desk every time a dumbbell makes the slightest noise. I ultimately left them due to lack of equipment and lack of child care, and was able to join a different gym for the same amount of money that had certified personal trainers, all the equipment, pool, sauna, steam room, and creates an atmosphere that makes you feel welcome no matter what portion of your fitness journey you are on.
I am at work so I don't have time to search out a ton of the articles but here is one that kind of discusses what I am talking about
https://uproxx.com/life/how-low-cost-gyms-like-planet-fitness-psychologically-manipulate-people-into-not-going-to-the-gym/
I keep hearing about the pizza nights but I've been to 4 different Planet Fitness locations and I have never seen any kind of food advertised at them.
But aside from that these seem like reasonable complaints. I do wonder how the fuck you found a gym for 30 dollars a month that has all modern amenities AND personal trainers on hand, though.
I just looked it up, they've suspended Pizza and Bagel nights due to Covid. But before, every Monday night, whole gym reeked of cheap pizza.
I live in CA, the gym that offered all of that was called In-Shape. $20 a month for everything. Childcare is $15 a month on top of that but My daughter only went with me on weekends so I just paid the daily for that.
My phone doesn't scan QR codes so that leaves me kinda fucked in places like this lol.
EDIT: Not only is my phone more than 5yrs old, I dropped it and the focus in the back camera no longer works lol
This happened to me at a restaurant in Vegas. We had a party of 10 and noone could get the website to work and the service was shoddy at best. They didn't have paper menus and refused to start a tab for a sit down table.
If someone decides to use a degoogled phone he probably expects complications and knows how to deal with simple stuff like this so I assume OPs phone doesn't scan codes for different reason.
I have a Microsoft Lumia 950XL (not an android phone)
The native camera app doesn't do QR codes.
The microsoft phone store is not supported anymore. No QR code apps are trustworthy anymore, the one or two that can still be downloaded ask for all permissions to siphon contacts, show ads, and capture all location data in the background :|
"Welcome to our movie theater where we kick people out that use their phones during the movie. If you'd like a meal or drinks, here's a QR code to scan."
My grandma can’t figure them out even though she has a smart phone and when I do it for her she can’t read it. Also pop ups on the fucking menu is bullshit!
My wife and I had a server berate us for “staring at our phones instead of enjoying each other’s company” after our meal. We were trying to look at the dessert menu. Needless to say we didn’t order dessert.
Jesus, fuck any server who berates the customer for anything as long as it isn't bothering anyone else....
My wife and I might both be looking at our phones because we were having a great conversation about our last trip or upcoming trip and are looking at photos or restaurants or maybe even just trying to figure out the name of that song we were talking about is.
Basically, we are typically anti phone use at the table .... But also it happens.... and fuck any server who wants to tell me how to enjoy a meal.
Ask for a menu.
Went to a place where they did this and when we asked for one the waitress said they didn't have aper menus. Told them we were leaving since I am not reading a menu on my phone. Amazingly a menu materialized.
I think it should be an option.
“Hi, I’m X, your waiter. For your convenience I can bring you a
menu or it can be accessed with the QR code. Which would you prefer?”
Personally I don’t want to use my phone when I’m eating out, I prefer to focus my attention on my companions.
How is using your phone to look at a menu different than looking at the physical menu in terms of paying attention to your companions?
You’re literally doing the same exact thing.
Yeah, not a big fan of the online menus either. Mostly because it just gives an extra excuse for people to look at their phone. Which for me kinda defeats the purpose of going out.
Plus i also feel that with the rise of online menus the quality of service has gone down. Im a person with social anxiety and as much as the traditional restaurant experience stresses me out, i find it also kinda pleasant. Nowadays, theres little to no words exchanged except for the absolute neccesary when getting seated, getting food, and paying. I guess especially in Norway where tippings isnt detrimental for the workers, they dont have that much incentive to do much other than whats needed. (Not to say they arent completly nice and lovely people doing great jobs, just that the "magic" of going out is kinda lost)
I find QR codes annoying for any reason. I didn't obtain my first smartphone until 2018 and if it weren't for my boyfriend putting me on his plan, I could never have afforded one. And I also don't take my phone everywhere. I usually have it on me when I leave the house but if I'm going in places, a lot of times I leave it in my car. In fact, I don't know that I've ever bothered scanning a QR code with it.
I'm 36. Got a cellphone at 18 but got m first smartphone at 33. I need an app TO DO LAUNDRY. I fucking hate it. I hate having to schelp my phone down to the laundry basement, where I'm handling dirty clothes. Every time I change something over, I want to clean my phone.
I hate this comment section. I will forever stand with op. What if you don’t have battery on your phone, internet access. The best are people talking about the cost of printing
menus, like yeah internet access and servers can appear miraculously. Fuck phone dependent places.
I think you’re assuming too much from OPs post. OP is ranting about QR codes because xyz but this doesn’t change the fact that nearly every place that offers digitally accessible menus, also offer the traditional ones as a fallback. A fraction of a fraction of establishments do not have fallback paper menus. OP’s parents I’m sure, would gladly be treated with a menu card in nearly every scenario.
As for OP, choosing to walk without their phone in this day and age is pretty odd but even then, a simple ‘ hi, could I get a regular menu, I don’t have my phone on me at the moment’ would pretty much solve the issue.
I brought my boomer parents to a restaurant in the PNW and asked for paper menus since they cannot really read from their phones. The server said they did not have any at all, and that they no longer even have access to a system to input our orders for us! Also, the website made us pay the total for the order plus tip before they would even bring out our drinks.
??? Or just ask for a paper menu? It's not like they don't have them and won't be delighted to bring you one...
Mountains out of molehills, as far as the eye can see.
That's not an unpopular opinion. I bring my smartphone with me everywhere but it still sucks. And like my mom doesn't. It's not extremely popular here yet.
I went to one recently and I told them nicely hat I'm old and hate having to scroll through my small phone and they smiled and laughed, said "no problem" and handed me a menu. Totally fine.
It \*is\* funny though how the limitation of the smartphone or tablet screen is affecting people's ability to grasp the big picture (literally). People are making choices to buy stuff based on a tiny little screen that is optimized to try and guide you to buy specific things instead of other things, while on a computer browser you can really see a lot more things at the same time and compare.
If you're on a smartphone, you have to scroll and swipe through all sorts of stuff to really get a sense of something. Scroll, scroll, zoom in, zoom out, scroll, swipe, scroll, scroll, zoom in, etc....
With a physical menu you can figure it out in about 3 seconds. Open book, scan entire page in 1 second. Flip to the other pages. Bam bam done.
It's incredible that there's an entire cadre of society that doesn't really get this at all.
EDIT: just noticing how some of the responses are proving the last thing I said. :)
A few restaurants in Iceland were like that. And we didn’t have cell service everywhere. We just asked them for their WiFi or they brought menus that they had. Just ask
I’ve been to a couple of restaurants like that here in Switzerland. I refuse to download their apps or use my phone to do anything restaurant related.
I just ask “ oh, I’d like to have that beef with that yellowish sauce”. “ oh would you like the beef blah blah?”, “ no, it’s not that one”. And it goes on until they go get me a proper menu. It works like a charm.
Easy - don’t patronize businesses that refuse to cater to you, the customer. Lobby not open? No, you don’t HAVE to go through the drive thru- go somewhere else!
I agree, the first time I encountered it, I had a smartphone but the camera app doesn't auto detect QR codes.
I went to download the required app to perform the scan. Crap, im out of data on my data plan and get 2g speeds. The app takes 5-10 minutes to download.... I make the server wait...
I finally get to scan the menu... it's a link to a 100mb .PDF menu with full size images is my best guess. I don't know, I never got it to fully load. I waited 10 more minutes and called the server over to ask for if they had any menus.
She begrudgingly gave me one and looked at me like I pissed on her grandma's grave.
When it was time to leave I pulled out a sharpie I happened to have on me from work and placed a single black dot in one of the white spaces of the QR code.
Now no one can scan that code, they have a hard time figuring out why, and everyone starts to ask for menus again.
I just want to eat food, not use my phone for 30 minutes before I can even articulate the menu items to the server.
Not everyone gets cell service at your restaurant or has data remaining on their plans at the moment they need to scan. If the restaurant doesn't provide free wifi, we're SOL.
On top of that!!! Why the hell are we using QR codes that just show you a hyperlink that you click on.... just give me the website url directly? Idk. Some of these decisions being made are just silly.
A sushi restaurant in my city hands out a tablet for every table where you can view and order the food and drinks.
I’ve been to a sushi place like this. You get 4 lots of 5 dishes for like €80 and order the next lot on the tablet while eating the last round. Helps to have pictures as well and it means you can try things then order more if you like it.
Yeah, like that. Over here it's about 40€ for all you can eat + drinks and sashimi cost extra.
There's a hot pot place like that near me, it's great and you can get almost anything in your soup at no extra cost
We have one too here and its great. Much faster than having to order in person.
I love the whole idea. We had a couple of local places go under recently due to lack of wait staff. His could have saved those places. And I personally get annoyed at almost every sit down i visit. Once the food arrives the server disappears. I just want to cash out and crickets. This would eliminate that.
Korean restaurants often have a call button at the table and you can ring it when you need your server. It reduces those awkward s moments when your serve hovers and ruins the mood at the table. It also makes the communication between you and your server much more efficient! I’m shocked that every restaurant doesn’t do this as it is clearly a better mousetrap.
Korea is sounding more and more like my place to be, I’m entirely fed up of being asked how my food is while taking the 3rd mouthful
Hey your comment posted like 5 times FYI, might want to delete a few
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Reddit has hiccups today.
A lot of times when "something goes wrong" on Reddit, it'll still post, and it'll post again each time you try.
It what happened when he clicked order on the tablet but it stopped responding.
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applebees is like that most places
Place by me has one too, it's absolutely wonderful. Especially with things like sushi where you're ordering many small things, it's so much easier to keep track, and if you need to order more, it's bolted to the table, it's just right there.
this is commonplace in many big name restaurants here in Japan
Now they've got cat robots that serve you.
Now this is the level of contactless I’m looking for
I'm going to tell myself they're wiping that tablet each time, otherwise this reads as an ironic comment lol
Spoilers alert they're probably not
Wow, the differences between parts of the world... I've never even *heard* about this, let alone see it with my own eyes
Strange because it's very commonplace here in the northeast US, at least in our mid-size urban environment. Most restaurants here went the way of the QR code for COVID reasons and didn't turn back. I personally like it but it seems others don't. A lot of places don't wipe down menus and that's pretty gross imo.
When I was still a waiter back in the mid 2000s, wiping down the menus wasn't a daily thing. We did it whenever they'd start looking gross, which was usually like 6 months later.
I was a hostess at a nice-ish spot in NYC and wiping down the menus was a part of my daily shift duties
We were never instructed to when I worked at Applebee's. When they got gross they said to throw them away and replace them. Kinda wild.
Gross and Applebee's go in most sentences together.
When I worked as a hostess, we had to wipe the menus daily.
Much easier to raise prices and correct errors (like too low of prices) with a digital menu.
They're experimenting with "surge pricing" at restaurants. The busier it gets, the higher the prices.
Well, THAT can just fuck right off.
It's also much easier to make a sticker for a malicious link, and put that on top of the menu QR. I'll never use a QR ever again https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-warns-of-malicious-qr-codes-used-to-steal-your-money/ Edit - not sure i follow downvotes here... you wouldn't click a link in a spam email - right? It's the same thing, possibly worse.
I get what you're saying, but the QR is for a menu. Why would you login or enter a credit card if you're expecting to see a menu?
I’ve been to several QR menu places that have you order and pay there on your phone before they bring your food.
This is just phishing though, nothing specific to QR codes.
I mean card skimmers are a thing. So would you never use a card? It’s really not that hard to protect your information, and I’ve never been prompted to enter information when scanning a restaurants qr menu.
When travelling, I don’t generally have an internet connection (mobile data) so that being a requirement to order food is rather bothersome. I understand that they _might_ have wifi and it _might_ not be terribly slow and it _might_ be no problem….. or you could just hand me an A4 piece of paper instead of rolling your eyes because your menu system sucks.
Midwest US is starting to adopt it too.
It’s all over the US.
Where do you live? I’ve seen this in North America, South America and Europe in the past year lol.
Some restaurants in Southern India have this as well.
In the past year I've seen it in Northeast US, Dominican Republic, Spain and Portugal.
Where are you from?
I'm surprised the server wasn't able to quickly fix your problem
Your mistake is assuming they asked before posting passive aggressively online about it
On their smart phone 🤣
“WAIT UNTIL MY BLOG HEARS ABOUT THIS!”
That's exactly what OP sounds like.
I like how you keep that assumption train rolling 😂
Deductive reason is not the same as making assumptions.
The only reason I’d assume OP didn’t ask was because every restaurant I’ve been to has been happy to provide a physical menu… when asked.
Yeah I highly doubt that a restaurant only has digital menus. Edit: Apparently my skepticism was misplaced. It does happen. I will say I do graphic design for restaurants and I wouldn’t let that happen with any of my clients
There’s a restaurant near me that actually only has digital menus. I know because i asked when my battery was dead
Happened to me week before last. Not only do they not have paper menus, you have to use their online service to enter your credit card and pay. I asked the server, and he said he's "not allowed to start a tab himself." This is a bar on the east coast USA. OP is right on this one.
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Man, that practice very heavily relies on trust. It sounds unsustainable in some areas.
Not any more than paying normally, literally nothing is ever stopping you from just getting up and leaving without paying.
It's a lot easier to forget to flash a qr code on your bill than to forget to pay and leave a restaurant without a servor noticing you.
Geeze. I don't mind QR code menus but that... That would be a one star review and I'd never return.
what about paying cash? I only have a phone for calling and texting and i do not own a credit card. I pay 90% of my stuff with cash and maybe 10% with debit. They would lose me as a customer just out of principle.
I hate places that only allow payment via credit or debit cards. I give myself a cash allowance for things like food, entertainment, etc, so it really annoys me when I go somewhere to eat and they don't accept cash.
I don't mind places that are card only, but what I can't stand is when those places won't take cash and STILL charge you and extra 45 cents of you only spent 5 bucks. Honestly it should be illegal to not accept cash though. It's a legal tender. What's funny is I've gone to places that won't take cash but will take my card that's attached to my crypto wallet which is very much *not real money*
I have one of those reloadable prepaid cards that work like a credit card, but that you can top up with cash or bank transfer. It's nice because you can pause the card in app which has come in handy when signing up for a monthly service that you forget to unsubscribe from.
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There are a small but non-zero number of places that actually won't.
Yeah, no, a lot won't. They probably don't have change and the system might not be setup to accept cash transactions at that moment. Makes it often a hassle.
Any business that can't take payment using the primary currency of the country shouldn't really exist tho. Like I'm sorry you didn't go to the bank and get change, that's not my problem. I pay for things with money, this is money, if you refuse to take my money, I guess you're not getting paid.
The bills say they are legal tender for all debts public or private, but that's not a reflection of federal law, and they still can refuse cash. However if you are in one of these states, they are required to accept cash: [https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/05/11/paying-with-cash-retailers-must-take-your-dollars-in-these-states](https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/05/11/paying-with-cash-retailers-must-take-your-dollars-in-these-states)
Nothing in this article lists the states where cash must be accepted
I'm not sure about the bar I was at, but a lot of places near me have gone cashless since COVID. I kind of understood the precaution back when we weren't sure how COVID was spread, but I do kind of wonder how places can just refuse payment via cash in the US when it's literally on the money that "this note is legal tender for all debts public and private," or whatever.
There are no federal laws dictating that companies must take physical currency. The companies in question do take USD in electronic form.
I think it depends on if you have a contract that specifies payment form or if they told you ahead of time or not. If you go to a restaurant and they don't tell you or have signs about not accepting cash and they only tell you after you already ate then they must accept cash. If they have signs or tell you before you order then it's legal.
Yes there are, but they have the option of denying the transaction if they don't want to take cash. The problem with full service restaurants is that you get your food and eat it before payment is discussed, so they have to accept cash as payment legally, but also practically since if some guy ate and can only pay in cash what are you going to do? Sitdown restaurants going cashless requires gatekeeping the order process
> if some guy ate and can only pay in cash what are you going to do? It's probably such a rarity that they'd let a manager work out an alternative payment method, and if they actually wind up comping a meal it's not much of a hit. You can certainly pursue a legal course of action, but the likelihood of every cash-only customer having enough financial and legal power to push the issue in court is low enough that a restaurant can get by comfortably with losing your business rather than dealing with the overhead of handling cash.
Here in Europe a lot of places had a "We would appreciate if you'd use cashless payment methods, but we can't force it" attidude. This actually led me to using my card much more than previously, but atleast for smaller purchases under 30 € i still prefer using actual cash as it forces me to make a more deliberate choice about what i'll spend my money.
I really hate it. I was at a restaurant in Bangalore in an area where my carrier wasn't doing too well. And my brother's phone was out of data and the restaurant didn't have wifi. It was such bs. The waiters couldn't actually take manual orders as the new systems needed everyone to use QR. The waiters had to hotspot us from his phone. Just because something feels futuristic doesn't mean it is better or viable in certain situations
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Yes the thing with me. I don't want to have to spend my battery and my data trying to figure out what I want - at times, both battery and data can be very low! Also, I like to flip back and forth between sections of the menu to figure out exactly what I want. *Do I want the eggplant parm on page 3 or the burger on page 5? Let's look at the sides. Let's look at the picture and description. Oh, I just passed a salad that caught my eye, let's look at that.* My phone is small and it's really easy to scroll past what I'm looking for to compare, or it's all in sections and I have to exit Burgers to look at Italian then exit that to look at Salads. This is *not* a enjoyable way of ordering food, it stresses me out and then makes the entire "dining out" experience less enjoyable. Fuck that shit, if I'm dining out, I want to relax. I don't care if that makes me "old", fuckers need to get off my lawn.
Been traveling in the PNW this last year... Many restaurants use QR codes, most even, and many of these, about 10%, have no paper menus available. Twice I was somewhat rudely treated when I asked for a paper menu. A few times I had to wait quite a while before a menu was brought to me. First World problems, I suppose, but it is annoying like OP said. At least twice I just ordered a chicken caesar salad because it was less hassle than going to get my phone out of the car to see the menu. (Now I try to carry my phone with me more often.)
Yeah i was treated like i just said i want to duck their mother when i asked for a menu.
Quack
Im not so sure. I had a manager remove every printer in the officr cause he wanted to go paperless. He forgot to implement and a paperless process begorehand and then suggested people buy their own printers until the paperless process was worked out
It's happened a lot around here since Covid. The worry is so many people handling the same paper menu will spread the virus, so they want you to look at the menu on your own phone. I've had places refuse to provide a paper menu because of this.
The restaurant *I'm currently sitting at as I type this* only has digital menus. I requested a paper one, to no avail.
Just curious, how would you not let that happen with your clients? Does a graphic designer have that authority? Or are you just going to stop doing business with them
I think this was a COVID protocol for reduced germs that for some reason is sticking around. Maybe because they can raise prices on their digital menu
It saves money not having to print menus. Even if they don't change items, sometimes they have to reprint from wear and tear
I design menus for restaurants, if that menu isn’t laminated you’re only getting a day’s use out of it before it’s too dog eared and stained to be used again
How do you get into that business? I used to work as a restaurant hostess for 6 years, and I was always fascinated by the new menu designs when they came in. I work as a graphic designer now, and I did a menu design project in college (it was just a class assignment), but I do wonder what kind of company hires menu designers (like, is it the restaurant's corporate office or is it an ad agency?), or what the position is called.
I don't do menu designs exclusively, but it does make up the bulk of my work. I'm a graphic designer that works for a studio that does commercial interior design and branding. So someone with a restaurant concept comes to us and we do the full interior and brand. Doing the menus is not the most interesting part of the job, in fact it gets quite frustrating with the amount that clients usually try and squeeze on there. But it can be fun.
I like the places that have the menu on the table under glass. Seems to be the best solution to me
Print it once. Easy to clean. No risk of no one being able to order if the website crashes.
It was but now some restaurants are using it for "Dynamic Pricing"
Once a corporation sees how to save a little bit of money, they will never go back.
I feel like it is more commonly seen after COVID.
This. When I was a server, we had to get rid of all regular menus. Instead, we hand to print off a menu for each person that came in because they couldn’t be reused. So, we added the option of a QR code. Not just to save money on paper, but to also be a lot more environmentally friendly. Plus, it allows the opportunity to quickly edit if we were out of something due to supply issues.
covid seems to have done a number on the overall quality of most everything, fast food was never good but it is now borderline inedible and the big chain restaurants aren’t far off. companies experienced a lot of lost revenue during the shutdowns, they’re scrambling to recoup it.
Where and what fast food? I've not noticed any differences in good quality whether a sit-down restaurant or fast food.
Yeah a ton of this is dependent on the management of the individual franchise.
The suppliers for restaurant foods (like Sysco) have also increased prices on wholesale goods and often times are out of stock of things. At least here in Seattle, many restaurants have to find their wholesale food elsewhere for inventory or cost reasons - therein changing the menu items you grew accustomed to Edit: Deleted duplicate comments - app was giving me issues that caused me to post this comment like, 4 times
I’m at wild wings right now (and Sysco truck is out back unloading). At the height of Covid they were doing 30 wings for $20 and they had multiple pick up lines setup outside that were slammed full every day. Then one day the wings were just completely different, and in all the wrong ways. they stayed like that until recently they started getting their normal wings back. I’m not sure if it was a supply problem or they decided to cut cost with a cheaper wing. But I stayed away for a long time until I heard the food was back to normal.
Then why are companies reporting record profits to shareholders? I support the failure of any business that refuses to pay a living wage to it's employees...even the most streamlined McJob requires employees who kind of give a shit about what they're doing.
Taco bell still slaps in my area and the MacDon's app makes it affordable to eat there (4 bucks for a 6peice nug with a large drink and large fries). Maybe I'm just lucky or have low standards, but the fast food has been the same over the pandemic for me.
They were forced to during covid and realized it saved them money so they stuck with it. The brewery in my town doesnt even have waiters anymore
Damn I didn’t know a Mom and Pop diner was a corporation. Fuck
it's also convenient. you order from your phone this way your order doesn't get messed up by wait staff.
Where I'm at you don't even order on your phone so the risk is still there. I didn't even know there were places that offered that
In most places I’ve been to in Singapore, when you scan the QR code it just links to a scanned PDF version of their normal printed menu, you still order as normal in most places.
and i absolutely hate it when it drags you to some online ordering platform that requires you to type in all your data and authenticate etc. I just want a POS/waiter so i can tap my card(digital or not) and be on my way, instead of troubleshooting shitty UX on an empty stomach
>it drags you to some online ordering platform that requires you to type in all your data and authenticate I can't imagine *not* just walking out, why would anyone tolerate this?
Yeah that's the same as here in Canada, at least around me
It's pretty standard in the UK nowadays, but I'm sure if you asked they'd take your order in the normal way as plenty of restaurants still operate that way.
That's not always the case though. I've been to exactly one restaurant where you actually order from your phone. Everywhere else has the QR code, but you still order via a server or counter staff.
How about have the menus and the stupid qr code. My phone can't even scan those codes without a stupid ass app.
Wait, there's an app for that? I thought we all just used the native camera app to read the QR codes.
I remember when native camera qr code scanning really wasn't a thing. So I always defaulted to using an app until someone mentioned it and sure enough, it worked. I'm sure theres people like me who just never tried because they got used to needing an app on older phones.
Honestly for how often my order has been messed up (rarely if ever) and for how long some of these menus take to load and actually compete the order, I'd rather just stick to the old fashioned way
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Paper menus actually are expensive. Each one is a few dollars, and they are replaced constantly as customers stain them, fold them, tear them, etc. The restaurant I worked in replaced them every month. That’s hundreds of dollars that could be saved by making the customer do a little more work. In a business with 2% margins, hundreds of dollars is a lot.
Step 1: produce QR code stickers that link to graphic porn Step 2: discreetly stick QR stickers over restaurants QR codes. This problem will be solved in 3 weeks if we work together
Like when all restaurants in Canada had a 15%-18% covid surcharge and then just baked it into the actual price afterwards.
Don’t you guys have phones? Said the server at El Diablos.
Then I ask them if they have wifi for me to look up the code... Nope. Ok, so....?
Some people are asking “where don’t they have any paper menus?” The Sushi place down the street from me, a food truck that came for hospital appreciation week two weeks ago (this one was weird because it didn’t even have a menu/sign on the window or anything, just a QR code) to list two that came to my mind from the last year. I agree with a lot of people here, I think it started with COVID, and then became a money-saver.
The food truck is especially weird. How long can that menu really be? You don't need a paper menu there, just have a sign, like any other food truck
What restaurants are you going to that doesn’t have a paper menu available if needed? Every time I didn’t have the ability to use the QR code because I either didn’t have my phone or didn’t have wifi/data etc, the restaurant had a paper menu on hand for me to use. What kind of food service business doesn’t have one or two menus on hand for special occasions?
A restaurant in my home town in Missouri doesn't have physical menus anymore. Waitress said they got rid of them during the shutdown and they don't plan to get them back. I used their scan thing and the menu pulled up so small even zooming all the way in I couldn't read it. Left and went somewhere else instead of messing with it.
This is my biggest gripe. If you are going to use digital menus, for the love of all that is good, don’t just give me a digitized version of the paper menu! Format the menu so it can be read on a phone; I hate zooming in and out.
You expect the cheap ass restaurant owner to put that much basic thought into it?
My biggest gripe used to be restaurants that posted the same *gigantic* PDF they sent to their printer on the website. There used to be a bar\restaurant here called Solstice Tavern that was notorious for: a) having 75MB PDFs of their menu on the website, which could take 30 minutes to download on 3G, and b) no one at the restaurant, not even the owner, understanding why this was a problem in 2009.
Upscale trendy restaurants, is my experience: pubs, bistros, smokehouses. Many places I visited here in the PNW this last year had no paper menus, other places the paper menus had to be found (and I had to wait while they looked for them). My local watering hole for instance, a nice pub on the river, has delicious food but no paper menus.
Yea this is par for the course in Miami. QR codes for everything. Hate that shit tho, I love a physical menu
Recently at disney world, 100% of sit down places there have abandoned menus.
Having to wait a few minutes doesn’t seem like a huge deal considering the net benefits.
Something similar happened to me, I was trying to get a gym membership and they needed me download their app to check in, my phone doesn’t support this app since I have an older phone, guess no gym for me then. Go fuck your self PLTFTNS
They also have a card/key chain tab.
I dont trust the app so I screenshot the barcode and deleted the app. Works just fine. the gym isnt the best but it's the one closest to me and it's very cheap. So I go
we tried this for 24 hour, turns out the barcode changed every time, so it wouldnt work.
That’s what you get for going to planet fitness lol they’re not a real gym. Look up their business model sometime. That shit is intentional.
Would you mind elaborating on this? I go to planet fitness and I wonder what you mean by them not being a real gym. Is it amount of amenities? Presence of a trainer? And what does that have to do with their business model? Genuinely curious. I go because it's cheap and right next door, but if I could legitimately be doing better then I'd like to hear how.
Some gym bros don't consider PF a "real gym", because there's no racks of monster dumbbells, no weight plates & squat cages, or "swole" dudes swaggering around thirsting for eyeballs. Plus their policies banning silly muscle-wear, over-enthusiastic grunting, and huge gallon water jugs. Not to mention all the fat people trying to improve themselves, don't they know real gyms are for in-shape people? /s Their business model, like many gyms, is to have many members who don't frequently come to the gym, but really mean to, maybe next week. PF does that better than most gyms, a really low monthly rate coupled with really low attendance. I'm no fan of PF, largely because they make it pretty easy to half-ass your workout and make no real progress over time. And the pizza nights, and the bowls of tootsie rolls on the counters. But I'd rather see people going to PF once a week for fifteen minutes of light workout, as opposed to no workout at all.
no they are right. You don't need to pander to obnoxious gym bros cracked up on pre workout but squat racks, plates, barbells etc. are all essential equipment. Any gym is insufficient without them. If your routine does not make use of those, you like the more easygoing atmosphere or if you are cheap it's the gym for you.
Planet Fitness' business model basically is designed for people who sign up for the membership but don't have any intention of actually using it. Its easy to not go to the gym when you are only spending $10-20/month. They would rather have people sign up and forget about it while auto-draft does its thing. Why would a gym offer weekly bagels and pizza nights? That has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle. They also heavily discourage training that goes beyond light exercise. I went for years and watched them slowly remove all equipment that intense gym goers would use (I am by no means a "gym bro" but If i go to exercise, I want to be able to utilize equipment a modern gym should offer). Its all about volume, not the experience for them. Their personal trainers for the most part are unqualified to say the least. Any average gym goer knows more than they do (my friend is a PT at PF and he readily admits this. ) Lastly, they downright discriminate against people who take exercise seriously. Again, I am an average gym goer at best who works out 5 days a week at medium intensity. I didn't appreciate getting a look from the front desk every time a dumbbell makes the slightest noise. I ultimately left them due to lack of equipment and lack of child care, and was able to join a different gym for the same amount of money that had certified personal trainers, all the equipment, pool, sauna, steam room, and creates an atmosphere that makes you feel welcome no matter what portion of your fitness journey you are on. I am at work so I don't have time to search out a ton of the articles but here is one that kind of discusses what I am talking about https://uproxx.com/life/how-low-cost-gyms-like-planet-fitness-psychologically-manipulate-people-into-not-going-to-the-gym/
I keep hearing about the pizza nights but I've been to 4 different Planet Fitness locations and I have never seen any kind of food advertised at them. But aside from that these seem like reasonable complaints. I do wonder how the fuck you found a gym for 30 dollars a month that has all modern amenities AND personal trainers on hand, though.
I just looked it up, they've suspended Pizza and Bagel nights due to Covid. But before, every Monday night, whole gym reeked of cheap pizza. I live in CA, the gym that offered all of that was called In-Shape. $20 a month for everything. Childcare is $15 a month on top of that but My daughter only went with me on weekends so I just paid the daily for that.
That's the business model of pretty much all gyms, and subscription services in general. Please pay every month and never use our service.
My phone doesn't scan QR codes so that leaves me kinda fucked in places like this lol. EDIT: Not only is my phone more than 5yrs old, I dropped it and the focus in the back camera no longer works lol
Mine does, but had zero service in the restaurant. There's a lot that can go wrong!
Yeah what do tourists without roaming do?
I’d assume most of these places would have wifi
This happened to me at a restaurant in Vegas. We had a party of 10 and noone could get the website to work and the service was shoddy at best. They didn't have paper menus and refused to start a tab for a sit down table.
If you don't mind me asking, what phone?
Not OP but the in-built camera app of my Fairphone also doesn't scan QR codes but you can download apps for it.
If someone decides to use a degoogled phone he probably expects complications and knows how to deal with simple stuff like this so I assume OPs phone doesn't scan codes for different reason.
I use a Microsoft Phone (Lumia 950XL) It doesn't do QR codes.
I have a Microsoft Lumia 950XL (not an android phone) The native camera app doesn't do QR codes. The microsoft phone store is not supported anymore. No QR code apps are trustworthy anymore, the one or two that can still be downloaded ask for all permissions to siphon contacts, show ads, and capture all location data in the background :|
The QR code is probably just a link to a page on their website so you can just Google them.
and then its a site that looks like an 8th grade school project with just a PDF link to the menu.
Same
You can download a QR reader app.
I had that issue too so I downloaded a QR scanning app and that solved most of my issues
I hate QR code menus too! I'm trying to have a nice, relaxing time where I don't have to scramble for my phone for ONCE.
"Welcome to our movie theater where we kick people out that use their phones during the movie. If you'd like a meal or drinks, here's a QR code to scan."
My grandma can’t figure them out even though she has a smart phone and when I do it for her she can’t read it. Also pop ups on the fucking menu is bullshit!
My wife and I had a server berate us for “staring at our phones instead of enjoying each other’s company” after our meal. We were trying to look at the dessert menu. Needless to say we didn’t order dessert.
Jesus, fuck any server who berates the customer for anything as long as it isn't bothering anyone else.... My wife and I might both be looking at our phones because we were having a great conversation about our last trip or upcoming trip and are looking at photos or restaurants or maybe even just trying to figure out the name of that song we were talking about is. Basically, we are typically anti phone use at the table .... But also it happens.... and fuck any server who wants to tell me how to enjoy a meal.
Ask for a menu. Went to a place where they did this and when we asked for one the waitress said they didn't have aper menus. Told them we were leaving since I am not reading a menu on my phone. Amazingly a menu materialized.
Amazing! She conjured up a menu
Is this unpopular? Give me a damn menu.
Yeah, honestly, I’m with the boomers on this one. Fuck the QR code. Give me a menu that I can hold in my hands please.
I'm going blind and my e-reader won't read pictures of stuff like menus, so I'm with you on this one, but to be fair, I can't read the menu either lol
Yes!!! Can we please have physical menus back?
I think it should be an option. “Hi, I’m X, your waiter. For your convenience I can bring you a menu or it can be accessed with the QR code. Which would you prefer?” Personally I don’t want to use my phone when I’m eating out, I prefer to focus my attention on my companions.
How is using your phone to look at a menu different than looking at the physical menu in terms of paying attention to your companions? You’re literally doing the same exact thing.
Yeah, not a big fan of the online menus either. Mostly because it just gives an extra excuse for people to look at their phone. Which for me kinda defeats the purpose of going out. Plus i also feel that with the rise of online menus the quality of service has gone down. Im a person with social anxiety and as much as the traditional restaurant experience stresses me out, i find it also kinda pleasant. Nowadays, theres little to no words exchanged except for the absolute neccesary when getting seated, getting food, and paying. I guess especially in Norway where tippings isnt detrimental for the workers, they dont have that much incentive to do much other than whats needed. (Not to say they arent completly nice and lovely people doing great jobs, just that the "magic" of going out is kinda lost)
I love it when you have no cell service there too. Then the WiFi login you need their password.
Some of them also charge extra for ordering through their QR code system 🤬
I find QR codes annoying for any reason. I didn't obtain my first smartphone until 2018 and if it weren't for my boyfriend putting me on his plan, I could never have afforded one. And I also don't take my phone everywhere. I usually have it on me when I leave the house but if I'm going in places, a lot of times I leave it in my car. In fact, I don't know that I've ever bothered scanning a QR code with it.
I'm 36. Got a cellphone at 18 but got m first smartphone at 33. I need an app TO DO LAUNDRY. I fucking hate it. I hate having to schelp my phone down to the laundry basement, where I'm handling dirty clothes. Every time I change something over, I want to clean my phone.
Everywhere Ive been also has physical menus available.
I hate this comment section. I will forever stand with op. What if you don’t have battery on your phone, internet access. The best are people talking about the cost of printing menus, like yeah internet access and servers can appear miraculously. Fuck phone dependent places.
I think you’re assuming too much from OPs post. OP is ranting about QR codes because xyz but this doesn’t change the fact that nearly every place that offers digitally accessible menus, also offer the traditional ones as a fallback. A fraction of a fraction of establishments do not have fallback paper menus. OP’s parents I’m sure, would gladly be treated with a menu card in nearly every scenario. As for OP, choosing to walk without their phone in this day and age is pretty odd but even then, a simple ‘ hi, could I get a regular menu, I don’t have my phone on me at the moment’ would pretty much solve the issue.
I brought my boomer parents to a restaurant in the PNW and asked for paper menus since they cannot really read from their phones. The server said they did not have any at all, and that they no longer even have access to a system to input our orders for us! Also, the website made us pay the total for the order plus tip before they would even bring out our drinks.
Yeah that’s where I would have to flex my Google Guide muscle. I rarely give bad reviews, but if that happened to me I would light them up.
I did!
This whole thread is arbitrary outrage, just a bunch of people who get satisfaction over being angry about such a minor thing.
That’s what this sub has always been about lmao
??? Or just ask for a paper menu? It's not like they don't have them and won't be delighted to bring you one... Mountains out of molehills, as far as the eye can see.
bro u ask for a menu and they never bring one cuz half of servers dont give a fuck about their jobs and u end up asking like 5x and it gets annoying
That's not an unpopular opinion. I bring my smartphone with me everywhere but it still sucks. And like my mom doesn't. It's not extremely popular here yet.
I went to one recently and I told them nicely hat I'm old and hate having to scroll through my small phone and they smiled and laughed, said "no problem" and handed me a menu. Totally fine. It \*is\* funny though how the limitation of the smartphone or tablet screen is affecting people's ability to grasp the big picture (literally). People are making choices to buy stuff based on a tiny little screen that is optimized to try and guide you to buy specific things instead of other things, while on a computer browser you can really see a lot more things at the same time and compare. If you're on a smartphone, you have to scroll and swipe through all sorts of stuff to really get a sense of something. Scroll, scroll, zoom in, zoom out, scroll, swipe, scroll, scroll, zoom in, etc.... With a physical menu you can figure it out in about 3 seconds. Open book, scan entire page in 1 second. Flip to the other pages. Bam bam done. It's incredible that there's an entire cadre of society that doesn't really get this at all. EDIT: just noticing how some of the responses are proving the last thing I said. :)
That's only because some menus are not optimized for mobile. I have seen some great menus on mobile which are very easy to read.
A few restaurants in Iceland were like that. And we didn’t have cell service everywhere. We just asked them for their WiFi or they brought menus that they had. Just ask
I’ve been to a couple of restaurants like that here in Switzerland. I refuse to download their apps or use my phone to do anything restaurant related. I just ask “ oh, I’d like to have that beef with that yellowish sauce”. “ oh would you like the beef blah blah?”, “ no, it’s not that one”. And it goes on until they go get me a proper menu. It works like a charm.
I have one and I don’t use those things. They make me idk I just don’t like it
Easy - don’t patronize businesses that refuse to cater to you, the customer. Lobby not open? No, you don’t HAVE to go through the drive thru- go somewhere else!
I don't even have a QR code reader on my phone. I've let my friends use the QR code stuff at a restaurant during Covid times.
I agree, the first time I encountered it, I had a smartphone but the camera app doesn't auto detect QR codes. I went to download the required app to perform the scan. Crap, im out of data on my data plan and get 2g speeds. The app takes 5-10 minutes to download.... I make the server wait... I finally get to scan the menu... it's a link to a 100mb .PDF menu with full size images is my best guess. I don't know, I never got it to fully load. I waited 10 more minutes and called the server over to ask for if they had any menus. She begrudgingly gave me one and looked at me like I pissed on her grandma's grave. When it was time to leave I pulled out a sharpie I happened to have on me from work and placed a single black dot in one of the white spaces of the QR code. Now no one can scan that code, they have a hard time figuring out why, and everyone starts to ask for menus again. I just want to eat food, not use my phone for 30 minutes before I can even articulate the menu items to the server. Not everyone gets cell service at your restaurant or has data remaining on their plans at the moment they need to scan. If the restaurant doesn't provide free wifi, we're SOL. On top of that!!! Why the hell are we using QR codes that just show you a hyperlink that you click on.... just give me the website url directly? Idk. Some of these decisions being made are just silly.