3 ms·

There are certainly bad QR Code menus, but good ones are just menus. They're fine. Everything in Conor's piece points to an almost incredible lack of self contr

by flkiwi 4y ago

There are certainly bad QR Code menus, but good ones are just menus. They're fine. Everything in Conor's piece points to an almost incredible lack of self control--he is incapable of not being distracted by his phone--which to me is a bigger problem than the format in which your menu is presented. Besides, give restaurant workers a break: it's one less thing they have to do to serve you, so they can focus more on providing good service. Having said that, I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations.

CogitoCogito 4y ago
> Besides, give restaurant workers a break: it's one less thing they have to do to serve you, so they can focus more on providing good service. In that case, they could just hand out menus at the entrance. Or if they don't greet you and instead just let you sit wherever, they can just put the menus in an obvious place. Restaurants have done this forever in similar situations. Online menus aren't necessary to solve this problem. > Having said that, I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations. I don't really agree. At least I don't think it's an unambiguously great innovation. Personally I find the requirement to have a phone much more irritating than to the requirement to have cash or credit cards. That said, I've never seen a place accept payments by phone not accept either cash or credit cards so I guess it's mostly just irrelevant to me.
- flkiwi 4y ago
  I could probably have phrased it differently and said having the OPTION to pay by phone is great. If I can avoid having to flag down someone who is working 5 extra tables because someone didn't show, just so she can hand me a paper slip ... I mean, it's a plus from my perspective. But I'm at the age that it catches me off guard every time I can do it.
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    > I could probably have phrased it differently and said having the OPTION to pay by phone is great. This article and the comments here are complaining about restaurants who _only_ use QR codes for menus. I'd presume there is basically no one against having the _option_ of seeing the menu with a QR code. While I personally find QR codes much inferior to many other simpler approaches (paper slips, menus at the door, menu on the wall, etc.), I don't care if they offer them in addition to traditional methods.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  > Besides, give restaurant workers a break: it's one less thing they have to do to serve you Yes, I also found this sentence to be very naive. No, they don't have the 2-second task of handing you a menu, instead they have the 2-minute task of explaining why there's no menu, trying to find the QR code reader on your phone, waiting for it to actually show up, then handing the phone back to you and demonstrating how to navigate between pages.
twelve40 4y ago
I've only seen the ability to pay (which was also kind of confusing) once or twice. Everywhere else was either hard to navigate weird websites, or a PDF that takes forever to download and is very hard to read on mobile, let alone discuss with people you are dining with, who are also buried in their phone trying to figure out yet another maze of clicks and downloads. In many places physical menus are handed out by a hostess whose whole job is to seat you and do that. If I want to "give them a break", I often just cook or get takeout. Physical menus are not hard to do and are much more friendly than reading from the palm of your hand.
- spoils19 4y ago
  Most places I go to now have the ability to pay on the phone, and it's much easier than trying to flag down a waiter. There's also no pressure for tipping, and I save precious time than having to wait for people to get back to me. I have never experienced a weird website as is described in this thread. Discussing with people I'm dining with is also... the same? I have no clue how you are experiencing something different here. Digital menus are not hard to do and are much more friendly. That said, this could all depend on how modern the area you regularly dine at - I'd expect less tech-savvy regions to fumble at this, which may indeed be your experience!
listenallyall 4y ago
> paying directly by phone is unambiguously great Life tip: tipping in cash is always preferred (by the tipee) over doing so digitally.
- flkiwi 4y ago
  I do it as often as I can, which is sadly not often because I rarely carry cash. We do, for a variety of reasons, tend to frequent places that are ethically run though, and often know everyone involved fairly well. But, yes, as long as we have tipping as a significant basis for restaurant workers' income, cash tips.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  How does it benefit the tipper to help someone else evade taxes?
- Eleison23 4y ago
  Once I handed a $20 bill to a cab driver and told him to "keep the change" and he falsified a receipt. Thanks, but I'm going to tip through the normal tipping mechanism with my normal payment method to ensure that everyone stays honest. And that probably includes the honest GrubHub drivers who invariably ditch my drink if they decide I haven't tipped high enough in the app.
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    cash is the normal tipping mechanism, universally accepted all around the world.
ericd 4y ago
Even if they're just menus, it's nice to be able to see every option at once, and scan back and forth between disparate item categories with one's eyes, without taking 5-30 seconds to navigate between them on a tiny screen.
JohnFen 4y ago
> I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations. No, we can't all agree to that. I dislike it deeply and won't do it. But I'm glad it pleases some people!

by flkiwi 4y ago

CogitoCogito 4y ago

> Besides, give restaurant workers a break: it's one less thing they have to do to serve you, so they can focus more on providing good service. In that case, they could just hand out menus at the entrance. Or if they don't greet you and instead just let you sit wherever, they can just put the menus in an obvious place. Restaurants have done this forever in similar situations. Online menus aren't necessary to solve this problem. > Having said that, I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations. I don't really agree. At least I don't think it's an unambiguously great innovation. Personally I find the requirement to have a phone much more irritating than to the requirement to have cash or credit cards. That said, I've never seen a place accept payments by phone not accept either cash or credit cards so I guess it's mostly just irrelevant to me.

flkiwi 4y ago
I could probably have phrased it differently and said having the OPTION to pay by phone is great. If I can avoid having to flag down someone who is working 5 extra tables because someone didn't show, just so she can hand me a paper slip ... I mean, it's a plus from my perspective. But I'm at the age that it catches me off guard every time I can do it.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  > I could probably have phrased it differently and said having the OPTION to pay by phone is great. This article and the comments here are complaining about restaurants who _only_ use QR codes for menus. I'd presume there is basically no one against having the _option_ of seeing the menu with a QR code. While I personally find QR codes much inferior to many other simpler approaches (paper slips, menus at the door, menu on the wall, etc.), I don't care if they offer them in addition to traditional methods.
listenallyall 4y ago
> Besides, give restaurant workers a break: it's one less thing they have to do to serve you Yes, I also found this sentence to be very naive. No, they don't have the 2-second task of handing you a menu, instead they have the 2-minute task of explaining why there's no menu, trying to find the QR code reader on your phone, waiting for it to actually show up, then handing the phone back to you and demonstrating how to navigate between pages.

twelve40 4y ago

I've only seen the ability to pay (which was also kind of confusing) once or twice. Everywhere else was either hard to navigate weird websites, or a PDF that takes forever to download and is very hard to read on mobile, let alone discuss with people you are dining with, who are also buried in their phone trying to figure out yet another maze of clicks and downloads. In many places physical menus are handed out by a hostess whose whole job is to seat you and do that. If I want to "give them a break", I often just cook or get takeout. Physical menus are not hard to do and are much more friendly than reading from the palm of your hand.

spoils19 4y ago
Most places I go to now have the ability to pay on the phone, and it's much easier than trying to flag down a waiter. There's also no pressure for tipping, and I save precious time than having to wait for people to get back to me. I have never experienced a weird website as is described in this thread. Discussing with people I'm dining with is also... the same? I have no clue how you are experiencing something different here. Digital menus are not hard to do and are much more friendly. That said, this could all depend on how modern the area you regularly dine at - I'd expect less tech-savvy regions to fumble at this, which may indeed be your experience!

listenallyall 4y ago

> paying directly by phone is unambiguously great Life tip: tipping in cash is always preferred (by the tipee) over doing so digitally.

flkiwi 4y ago
I do it as often as I can, which is sadly not often because I rarely carry cash. We do, for a variety of reasons, tend to frequent places that are ethically run though, and often know everyone involved fairly well. But, yes, as long as we have tipping as a significant basis for restaurant workers' income, cash tips.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
How does it benefit the tipper to help someone else evade taxes?
Eleison23 4y ago
Once I handed a $20 bill to a cab driver and told him to "keep the change" and he falsified a receipt. Thanks, but I'm going to tip through the normal tipping mechanism with my normal payment method to ensure that everyone stays honest. And that probably includes the honest GrubHub drivers who invariably ditch my drink if they decide I haven't tipped high enough in the app.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  cash is the normal tipping mechanism, universally accepted all around the world.

ericd 4y ago

Even if they're just menus, it's nice to be able to see every option at once, and scan back and forth between disparate item categories with one's eyes, without taking 5-30 seconds to navigate between them on a tiny screen.

JohnFen 4y ago

> I hope we can all agree that paying directly by phone is one of the unambiguously great COVID-era innovations. No, we can't all agree to that. I dislike it deeply and won't do it. But I'm glad it pleases some people!