I went to a restaurant that not only had the QR code menu, but also insisted that we order and pay on the phone. We had trouble getting the website to load. An employee told us to try using the restaurant's wifi. Eventually one of us got the website working but the other didn't, so we all ordered and paid on one phone. Despite seeing all our struggles, the staff did not say "oh, we'll just order it for you in the system" - I think they had no way to place orders and process payments directly.
I will never return to that restaurant. If a restaurant wants to require this sort of impersonal ordering, it should at least provide its own equipment that is hooked to the proper network - like a stand-up kiosk (some sandwich counters in gas stations do this) or a wireless at-table device (Olive Garden and Chili's.) If I ever go to another restaurant and they tell me to order on my phone, I will just leave.
I've been to restaurants like this. I have to download an app, or navigate a mobile website to order food and pay: it's a terrible customer experience. It's not convenient, it's not pleasant. If I wanted an impersonal and unfriendly experience, completely mediated through an app, I could just stay home and order Doordash.
I think somebody must have made a bundle selling this kind of system to restaurants during COVID, and during an extreme situation like that, it may have seemed like a solution. But afterwards, it's just a strike against the restaurant. To me at least.
I went to an Italian restaurant while visiting London and sat for 30 minutes before asking why no one was taking my order; they said, oh, you have to order online. But there were no signs or anything. So, the next two nights, I went to the other Italian place next door, which was old school, and took orders from a server. Food was better, too. Technology is usually a good thing, but not when I'm hungry.
> If I ever go to another restaurant and they tell me to order on my phone, I will just leave.
100%
Those systems are actively hostile to customers. There are three restaurants (that I've been to) in my town that starting doing this, and I won't go back to them as long as they keep it up. Which might mean forever, as I don't think I'd know if they stop using them in future.
Had similar experiences. This is why they need to bring the proper folks to think through the problem - digital is great until it doesn't work and paper is just less of a pain for everyone. Also, costs a lot less!
Reminds me of a UX course I took many years ago at uni.
As an exercise, we were asked to come up with a solution to help people navigate campus. There were so many suggestions for apps or interactive touch screens. Someone suggested installing terminals where you type where you want to go, and then the floor lights up with directions. Someone else did the same, only it would launch a drone for you to follow.
I suggested hanging printed paper maps on the walls with "you are here" stickers.
I'm not quite sure how having to reprint paper menus is cheaper than a static CDN website. Especially if you have multiple locations.
As much as Restaurants moan and complain about raising prices, having to reprint menus isn't 0 cost whenever they want to add a new menu item, or change the prices.
And then you have to pay your servers to clean them from time to time.
As much as people hate this QR stuff, it's generally better, provided it works. Paper is always reliable, but if you can figure out a static CDN website, and create a QR code for it, it's going to be better for a restaurant that wants to change their menus on a semi frequent basis.
>This is why they need to bring the proper folks to think through the problem - digital is great until it doesn't work and paper is just less of a pain for everyone.
There's a reason why pretty much all states use paper ballots instead of electronic-only voting. In both elections and retaurants, paper just works. It has minimal outside dependencies, has few failure modes, and we have processes in place to deal with corner cases.
Sure, electronics are flashier and more efficient, but I think HN can more than appreciate the truth that software and computers are brittle.
They need to look at how japan does their electronic ordering - an ipad-esque touch screen, and a rail cart that delivers the sushi directly to your table.
All the restaurant order/pay app developers have pivoted to making the flip-around kiosks that charge 20% and up for tipping now, so the QR code app game is dying off apparently. :\
It has seemed strange to me that some nicer restaurants that seem to care for every other detail of the experience have held onto this as long as they have. Many QR menus are pretty terrible from a UX point of view regardless of whether it “cheapens the experience” in a less tangible way. At a basic functional level I find that my brain can keep the location of a few items I’m considering and want to “glance between” in memory on a physical menu, but not with a digital menu (particularly given that scrollbars as a visual cue have been pushed aside over time).
One circumstance where I do love QR code menus is with a big casual group at a brewery type place that has unique QRs per table so you can just order straight from the menu, pay, and have things come out. This is a great experience that solves a bunch of annoying issues when the gathering is not specifically a meal but instead involves people coming early or late and ordering disparate items. It improves a lot over the longstanding “order at the counter and take a stick with a number” model.
The thing that gets me is that the QR code menu is much, much worse than looking up the menu on the restaurant's regular web site. I've bypassed the QR code menu before and just started staging an order from their carryout ordering system, then used the shopping cart to organize and rattle off what I want to the server. I can also stage multiple items that I may be interested in for comparison, then make a final decision from the smaller list.
Good. Some of us don't use smartphones. 10% of US adults don't according to a 2023 Pew survey, though I suspect most of those are old people. Any business requiring one explicitly excludes me as a customer and generally makes the world a less-accessible place.
The smartphone-required world is a dystopia. Build on open protocols so people can write whatever software they want on top of them. UI should be personal preference, not dictated. I prefer to control my life from Emacs, but wouldn't dream of forcing everyone else to. Please return the courtesy.
I do have a smartphone, but the idea that I should be obligated to use it in order to do something as simple as picking a meal at a restaurant leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. I don't want to live in a world where use of a smartphone - owned, as they all are, by two giant corporations - becomes a prerequisite for participation in the economy.
Sometimes I pretend I don't have a phone and ask the restaurant to bring me a menu anyway, on the principle of the thing. Of course printed menus offer a much better experience anyway.
Can only read the first paragraph, but even that seems wrong, so I guess the rest of the article would be the same...
> Not that long ago, QR code menus were the go-to fix for restaurants looking to speed up service without hiring more servers. Then the diners staged a revolt.
No, QR codes is one possible solution to the problem of changing menus, and having to reprint all the time. Also, QR code menus (at least where I am) became mandatory during the pandemic together with mandated contact-less payments, and that's when it really became popular around here.
Besides, thinking that QR codes can replace servers seems to indicate to me that the article author has literally no idea what they're writing about, if they don't even understand the basic function of servers...
> Besides, thinking that QR codes can replace servers seems to indicate to me that the article author has literally no idea what they're writing about, if they don't even understand the basic function of servers...
It just said QR code menus can speed up service, not replace servers. Seems logical to me that if servers are spending time bringing out food rather than standing around waiting for guests to tell them what they want and writing it down that service will generally be speedier.
In many places QR codes have partially replaced servers as you're now "directed" to pay via a link supplied via said QR code, a job that used to be carried out by said servers until not that long ago.
Good, I don't go to a restaurant to sit on my phone, I go to converse with my party. Don't make me stare at the little death screen any more than I have to.
Anyway back to my 10 hours of staring at a bigger death screen all day ;)
Reading a menu on a phone is just annoying. But paying through QR code works well. A restaurant near me had a system where the waiter brought you a check with a QR code. You scanned the QR code and could finish the payment online. Way better than the waiter going back and forth three times. Last time I was there they had gone back to the old ways though. Not sure why.
Not a single one of my family members would know how to even begin to use such a payment system. Several older members don't have smart phones at all. If this is an OPTION that's great, but to make it required means a lot of folks get left out.
Entering my card number and going through the elaborate two-factor rigamarole for online payment here in Denmark sounds like a terrible time, instead of just using my card like normal. Hard pass.
I've seen restaurants where there's a QR code at the table to use for payment while ordering. But what if someone replaces the QR codes with fake ones that make you pay elsewhere?
I find it much easier for the server to drop the check off. A few minutes later they pick it up, then return. Yes, it's three trips to the table, but they are usually refilling drinks, clearing plates, etc. anyway.
And, most importantly, they are doing the work versus me fumbling with their QR code and payment site instead of relaxing and chatting.
What I don't mind though are tabletop POS systems, wherein the swipe and sign is local and straightforward.
> You scanned the QR code and could finish the payment online. Way better than the waiter going back and forth three times.
I disagree that it's better, and especially if you have to set up an online account to do it.
But I also short-circuit the back-and-forth thing by handing the server my card at the same time as I'm telling them I want the check. Then there's only one trip involved.
> But I also short-circuit the back-and-forth thing by handing the server my card at the same time as I'm telling them I want the check. Then there's only one trip involved.
How can that work? Do you also give the server your card's PIN?
My favourite local eatery has a website that looks like it was made in Frontpage 2003. It has a big long row of those coloured and textured bezel-effect buttons that were all the rage back then.
Most bizarrely of all, the restaurant was only opened in 2018.
My problem -- and probably I am not alone in this -- are dietary restrictions. So when I order, it's not going be what's on the menu, rather some kind of meat or fish from one entree and then side from another and maybe something I spotted available as a salad topping and I love it. If a server comes and takes my order they can write it down and most of the time they can make it work. I have no idea how to order this with a QR menu. It's not fungible.
Readit News
I will never return to that restaurant. If a restaurant wants to require this sort of impersonal ordering, it should at least provide its own equipment that is hooked to the proper network - like a stand-up kiosk (some sandwich counters in gas stations do this) or a wireless at-table device (Olive Garden and Chili's.) If I ever go to another restaurant and they tell me to order on my phone, I will just leave.
I think somebody must have made a bundle selling this kind of system to restaurants during COVID, and during an extreme situation like that, it may have seemed like a solution. But afterwards, it's just a strike against the restaurant. To me at least.
Deleted Comment
True. But when you’re already drunk and stoned, it’s a personal challenge.
You must be young
100%
Those systems are actively hostile to customers. There are three restaurants (that I've been to) in my town that starting doing this, and I won't go back to them as long as they keep it up. Which might mean forever, as I don't think I'd know if they stop using them in future.
As an exercise, we were asked to come up with a solution to help people navigate campus. There were so many suggestions for apps or interactive touch screens. Someone suggested installing terminals where you type where you want to go, and then the floor lights up with directions. Someone else did the same, only it would launch a drone for you to follow.
I suggested hanging printed paper maps on the walls with "you are here" stickers.
As much as Restaurants moan and complain about raising prices, having to reprint menus isn't 0 cost whenever they want to add a new menu item, or change the prices.
And then you have to pay your servers to clean them from time to time.
As much as people hate this QR stuff, it's generally better, provided it works. Paper is always reliable, but if you can figure out a static CDN website, and create a QR code for it, it's going to be better for a restaurant that wants to change their menus on a semi frequent basis.
There's a reason why pretty much all states use paper ballots instead of electronic-only voting. In both elections and retaurants, paper just works. It has minimal outside dependencies, has few failure modes, and we have processes in place to deal with corner cases.
Sure, electronics are flashier and more efficient, but I think HN can more than appreciate the truth that software and computers are brittle.
One circumstance where I do love QR code menus is with a big casual group at a brewery type place that has unique QRs per table so you can just order straight from the menu, pay, and have things come out. This is a great experience that solves a bunch of annoying issues when the gathering is not specifically a meal but instead involves people coming early or late and ordering disparate items. It improves a lot over the longstanding “order at the counter and take a stick with a number” model.
The smartphone-required world is a dystopia. Build on open protocols so people can write whatever software they want on top of them. UI should be personal preference, not dictated. I prefer to control my life from Emacs, but wouldn't dream of forcing everyone else to. Please return the courtesy.
Sometimes I pretend I don't have a phone and ask the restaurant to bring me a menu anyway, on the principle of the thing. Of course printed menus offer a much better experience anyway.
> Not that long ago, QR code menus were the go-to fix for restaurants looking to speed up service without hiring more servers. Then the diners staged a revolt.
No, QR codes is one possible solution to the problem of changing menus, and having to reprint all the time. Also, QR code menus (at least where I am) became mandatory during the pandemic together with mandated contact-less payments, and that's when it really became popular around here.
Besides, thinking that QR codes can replace servers seems to indicate to me that the article author has literally no idea what they're writing about, if they don't even understand the basic function of servers...
It just said QR code menus can speed up service, not replace servers. Seems logical to me that if servers are spending time bringing out food rather than standing around waiting for guests to tell them what they want and writing it down that service will generally be speedier.
And because QR codes can be used like that that prevents how that restaurant try to use it for what the article said?
If you read the other comments here then it definitely happened like the article said.
That's like saying companies don't use Excel as a database application because it's a spreadsheet.
Deleted Comment
Anyway back to my 10 hours of staring at a bigger death screen all day ;)
And, most importantly, they are doing the work versus me fumbling with their QR code and payment site instead of relaxing and chatting.
What I don't mind though are tabletop POS systems, wherein the swipe and sign is local and straightforward.
I disagree that it's better, and especially if you have to set up an online account to do it.
But I also short-circuit the back-and-forth thing by handing the server my card at the same time as I'm telling them I want the check. Then there's only one trip involved.
How can that work? Do you also give the server your card's PIN?
Edit: to clarify - i mean the QR codes would be fine if the place they lead to was well designed.
Most bizarrely of all, the restaurant was only opened in 2018.