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This part made me a bit mad on behalf of restaurant owners: > paying for the QR menus on top of printed menus can be costly — especially if customers aren't us

This part made me a bit mad on behalf of restaurant owners: > paying for the QR menus on top of printed menus can be costly — especially if customers aren't using them. I mean, hosting a low-volume static website and printing out a URL as a QR code are nearly free. So many tech businesses take advantage of restaurant owners (and restaurants are already an extremely low margin business) solely because most restauranteurs are not tech savvy.

jeroenhd 3y ago
Hosting is cheap, but people who can write HTML and CSS aren't. You need some kind of SaaS and that's where you need to know that you can use Squarespace/Wix/whatever free tool you prefer and just print out a QR code, but that's not something restaurant oriented SaaS providers will tell you. Printing menus costs a few cents, laminating them a bit more. That's a tough price to beat.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > Hosting is cheap, but people who can write HTML and CSS aren't The level of "create a static online version of my menu" is something ChatGPT could actually do quite easily.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I'd just rather ChatGPT order for me. "You know me, what would I like? Order that." Please make menus GPT friendly.
- hedora 3y ago
  File -> Print to pdf… Dodgy QR code sites are surprisingly common (pro tip: convert it back to text, and see if they are bouncing through a server so they can later charge you to prevent the code from “expiring”). S3 sync + https lambda + cdn is a shockingly huge pain in the ass to setup, but once it is done, you just “s3 sync” the directory with the pdf you printed. I agree with your general point though. That corner of the industry is full of predatory service providers.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    Google Docs can serve as static site
- lightedman 3y ago
  You don't need more than the basics of HTML 1.0 to make a menu for a restaurant. I had those figured out at 10.
edmundsauto 3y ago
Costs are higher for businesses that require high touch sales or support. Small businesses in general, are challenging for both.
MattGaiser 3y ago
A relative of mine had a static site with 4 pages made for her business. Static site to show some images and files and list a phone number and email. $13,000 dollars + monthly hosting charges.
- sphars 3y ago
  Wow, I need to start charging a lot more
- M4v3R 3y ago
  Assuming $50 per hour it’s 260 hours of work. Divide that between a programmer (static websites still need too be coded) and designer that’s 130 hours each - less than a month of work. If the website was custom made (didn’t just use a premade Wordpress template) then this price is entirely believable.
  - iSnow 3y ago
    2x130h for a four-page site? It's not 1998 anymore.
    - sethammons 3y ago
      I was making 4 page sites in 1998. Honest time, including a log in and management of content, was a few days of work (php 3, mysql, and the awesome js that auto placed the cursor on the login input). If it didn't have db driven content, it would be a few hours max.
  - nicbou 3y ago
    I used to make websites for small businesses. That was a decade ago but still. There's a lot of overhead with small clients. They don't have an internal employee who makes and sends the copy and the content. You really build everything from the ground up. You also have to host it and keep it online. There's only you; you're the whole IT department. Also I made 50 an hour a decade ago as a student. It's a low income for a freelance professional with unsteady work. Realistically, it's closer to a month of full time work, but it's spread over 3-6 months of talking, meeting, getting feedback, waiting for images etc. It was one of my favourite jobs because I could apply tech to solve smaller, tangible problems. It was also the hardest to live from.
Gigachad 3y ago
In my experience they aren’t just static files. They are paying for an entire platform and integrated system that takes orders and payments. That’s expensive. But probably cheaper than a fully manual process.

jeroenhd 3y ago

Hosting is cheap, but people who can write HTML and CSS aren't. You need some kind of SaaS and that's where you need to know that you can use Squarespace/Wix/whatever free tool you prefer and just print out a QR code, but that's not something restaurant oriented SaaS providers will tell you. Printing menus costs a few cents, laminating them a bit more. That's a tough price to beat.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> Hosting is cheap, but people who can write HTML and CSS aren't The level of "create a static online version of my menu" is something ChatGPT could actually do quite easily.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  I'd just rather ChatGPT order for me. "You know me, what would I like? Order that." Please make menus GPT friendly.
hedora 3y ago
File -> Print to pdf… Dodgy QR code sites are surprisingly common (pro tip: convert it back to text, and see if they are bouncing through a server so they can later charge you to prevent the code from “expiring”). S3 sync + https lambda + cdn is a shockingly huge pain in the ass to setup, but once it is done, you just “s3 sync” the directory with the pdf you printed. I agree with your general point though. That corner of the industry is full of predatory service providers.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  Google Docs can serve as static site
lightedman 3y ago
You don't need more than the basics of HTML 1.0 to make a menu for a restaurant. I had those figured out at 10.

edmundsauto 3y ago

Costs are higher for businesses that require high touch sales or support. Small businesses in general, are challenging for both.

MattGaiser 3y ago

A relative of mine had a static site with 4 pages made for her business. Static site to show some images and files and list a phone number and email. $13,000 dollars + monthly hosting charges.

sphars 3y ago
Wow, I need to start charging a lot more
M4v3R 3y ago
Assuming $50 per hour it’s 260 hours of work. Divide that between a programmer (static websites still need too be coded) and designer that’s 130 hours each - less than a month of work. If the website was custom made (didn’t just use a premade Wordpress template) then this price is entirely believable.
- iSnow 3y ago
  2x130h for a four-page site? It's not 1998 anymore.
  - sethammons 3y ago
    I was making 4 page sites in 1998. Honest time, including a log in and management of content, was a few days of work (php 3, mysql, and the awesome js that auto placed the cursor on the login input). If it didn't have db driven content, it would be a few hours max.
- nicbou 3y ago
  I used to make websites for small businesses. That was a decade ago but still. There's a lot of overhead with small clients. They don't have an internal employee who makes and sends the copy and the content. You really build everything from the ground up. You also have to host it and keep it online. There's only you; you're the whole IT department. Also I made 50 an hour a decade ago as a student. It's a low income for a freelance professional with unsteady work. Realistically, it's closer to a month of full time work, but it's spread over 3-6 months of talking, meeting, getting feedback, waiting for images etc. It was one of my favourite jobs because I could apply tech to solve smaller, tangible problems. It was also the hardest to live from.

Gigachad 3y ago

In my experience they aren’t just static files. They are paying for an entire platform and integrated system that takes orders and payments. That’s expensive. But probably cheaper than a fully manual process.