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The absolute worst menu experience I ever had was the Newark airport. All restaurants appear to be required to place tablets on the tables, which display a QR c

The absolute worst menu experience I ever had was the Newark airport. All restaurants appear to be required to place tablets on the tables, which display a QR code that I have to scan on my phone, which requires me to create an account to order, does not accept cash, and has the audacity to ask for a tip. I flagged down a server to ask if I could just order directly, but apparently that's not allowed. I ended up going to Starbucks and getting a croissant, because I guess they had enough clout to not get roped into the mandatory ordering system.

inhumantsar 3y ago
Classic Newark.
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
I think they're trying to "scale" out order-taking to sell more. But interestingly it seems like they screw up the order more than if they took it from you in person.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Reason077 3y ago
I’m all for QR code ordering (and even better, QR code payment!). With a well thought out, streamlined UX, it can be a great timesaver. But it needs to be optional: trying to force it on everyone is just crazy.
- hallway_monitor 3y ago
  I agree with this. After entering my card into Toast once, now from any restaurant I can scan the code, enter my tip amount and I'm done. So much better than using either cash or a card.
  - Reason077 3y ago
    Just the time saving in not having to flag down a waiter to get the bill is great!
- xp84 3y ago
  Similarly the online ordering for pickup sites that have sprung up to power the “non-DoorDash/Uber” option that restaurants want you to use. I like them, I like the usually not-inflated prices, but wish they would (A) be a fast, simple UI that works, and (B) stick to Apple/Google Pay and ask for no other info. No I don’t want to create a password or sign up for your newsletter!
- naravara 3y ago
  Why would we do QR code payments in a world where NFC payment flows exist and are well established?
  - zuprau 3y ago
    iPhones can only do what Apple allows developers to do, which isn’t much. A random payment provider can’t use NFC on the iPhone, but they can use the camera. So here we are. QR payments are super popular all over Asia (and yes they suck, but you can blame Apple)
  - Reason077 3y ago
    The QR code is physically attached to the table and links directly to the menu and/or your bill. QR codes are cheap (any printer can print one) so don't need special equipment. And people already understand how to use QR codes: they might not understand what an NFC tag/beacon is, or it might not work with all devices. What would NFC add that you can't do with a QR code? (Use of a QR code doesn't preclude paying in the normal way by calling over a server and using a contactless payment terminal. It just gives you the option to skip that and pay directly from your device.)
fmasood 3y ago
China has the best adaptation of this trend that I have seen. Simple UIs with no registration, and direct payment with Alipay and Wechat. Seamless and helps with the language barrier as well.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- winrid 3y ago
  In many cases you probably never even have to leave Wechat. That's assuming you even needed your phone at all and the waiter didn't just scan your face to pay.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Scanning to pay ? Damn that's horrifying.
    - winrid 3y ago
      Maybe. They don't seem to mind...
      - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
        You mean like they don't mind the great firewall, the good citizen passport and the concentration camp?
        winrid 3y ago
        That wasn't part of the conversation. But I'll bite. Somehow I always end up defending China on HN but really I'm just sharing what I have seen/heard during my time there. The majority of the Chinese do not worry about those things. The great firewall is probably the greatest inconvenience you listed. However, the Chinese that come here and see FB and Google say, hey, maybe the firewall is not a bad idea. It's easy to circumvent anyway. It just blocks the majority of the population from western media. The social credit system I don't know anything about, sorry. The camps, AFAIK, are for Uyghurs classified as dangerous or high risk. At least, that's what the Han believe. The general understanding is if you do something like text "terrorism" as a Uyghur - you disappear for a while. I think part of this is because they are terrified the US will radicalize the muslim extremists. The truth is we barely have to - they hate the Chinese enough there are recorded events of the Uyghers just running around killing Han Chinese with knives. This was before cameras were super popular, but there is potato footage. This is partly why large cities in Xinjiang have such high security (think officers with MP5s outside every K-6 school) So, the Han do not protest at such camps.
Keyframe 3y ago
Hah, I thought I was the only one! You sit in-front of that tablet at EWR and fiddle around.. I thought it might be due to a lot of people/orders, but places are always available. It's not Heathrow-like lines to enter restaurant.
clbrmbr 3y ago
> All restaurants appear to be required to place tablets on the tables All the shops (except Starbucks) are operated by a single company: OTG. They are absolutely swimming in the monopoly dividend. There are several such airports in USA.
ekianjo 3y ago
How is that legal not to accept cash?
- aeoliun 3y ago
  I believe as long as the place of business is not a government agency, they are not obligated to accept all payment types. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
  - jabroni_salad 3y ago
    maybe federally, but there are local laws too, including the states of massachusetts, rhode island, and new jersey. Also NYC, Philly, and San Francisco: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/16/fact-check-cashless-businesses-banned-only-some-local-state-laws/3330804001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/16/fac... Blocking unbanked people from the economy is sorta bad if you have any kind of homeless population.
- OJFord 3y ago
  Not that familiar with the US, but presumably (just because it seems reasonable, and is the case here) they don't have to serve you at all (err, as long as it's not discriminating on grounds of a protected characteristic) so it would be weird for the law to require accepting cash when it also allowed them to nominally comply with that but then refuse to serve anyone who wouldn't pay by card?
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    cash is legal tender recognized by the country you are in. There should be no rationale to refuse it.
    - kbelder 3y ago
      I believe the general rule in the US (unless there are state-specific laws that override this) is that a company is free to not do business with a cash customer, but once they do business with a customer, they cannot refuse cash payment. IE, a store could refuse to sell products for cash, but a restaurant couldn't refuse to accept cash in payment for the meal you've already eaten. If you ate, and tried to give the restaurant $50 cash to cover the bill, what's the restaurant going to do? Call the cops? The cops will just tell the owner to take the cash or forget about it.
ward 3y ago
I hate Newark airport so much because of this. Even worse, as a non-American just visiting, I tend to not have mobile data stateside. The wifi is pretty shit in many spots, I've had to literally leave one place because I could not get a wifi signal to even order and the staff refused to help. All this nonsense while there is a tablet right in front of me! Stupid company that does this, stupid airport that allowed a company to do this.
- alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
  Newark is unquestionably one of the worst airports in the country. It seems to be carefully designed to make people feel unwelcome. It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett book where a building had been constructed in the shape of a demonic rune so that people moving around would activate it as if it were an evil prayer wheel.
  - mmierz 3y ago
    It uses a lot of the same "hostile architecture" techniques that public spaces use to keep homeless people out. There's literally nowhere you can get comfortable, unless you want to lay on the ground in the middle of traffic.
  - alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
    Side note, I was thinking of Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett + Neil Gaiman, and it was a roadway, not a building: > In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the sigil odegra in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds." The thousands of motorists who daily fume their way around its serpentine lengths have the same effect as water on a prayer wheel, grinding out an endless fog of low-grade evil to pollute the metaphysical atmosphere for scores of miles around. Magnificent book.
_fat_santa 3y ago
I had an experience at Newark where I sat down an opened one of the mobile menu's only for a 30 second ad to start playing, the server told me "oh yeah just watch the ad and you can order after that". Like really? I'm already paying way over what the food would normally cost and you guys have the audacity to stuff an ad in front of me before I even have the privilege.
- jamal-kumar 3y ago
  Nice I will never fly through here ever in my life and will pay like 300$ extra just to avoid it in the future if I have to. Thanks for the tip, that is actually super useful.
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  Reading this has made me unreasonably angry.
- throw-ru-938 3y ago
  If you're paying, you're still the product.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
seanhunter 3y ago
If it makes you feel any better, Newark's restaurant ordering system was terrible right from when they replaced all the restaurants and added those IPads at every seat even before they threw QR codes into the mix. I wrote a blog post about it in around 2014 or so (ignore the update date - that was me resurrecting the blog after a server failure) https://www.uncarved.com/articles/falafel/ https://www.uncarved.com/articles/falafel/
jjav 3y ago
Absolutely. Newark airport is a food desert disaster because of this. I've learned that if I need to stop through Newark, always buy enough food for the layover at the previous airport since it's impossible to get anything in Newark. Thanks for the Starbucks tip, I hadn't noticed that (as I don't drink coffee).

inhumantsar 3y ago

Classic Newark.

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

I think they're trying to "scale" out order-taking to sell more. But interestingly it seems like they screw up the order more than if they took it from you in person.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Reason077 3y ago

I’m all for QR code ordering (and even better, QR code payment!). With a well thought out, streamlined UX, it can be a great timesaver. But it needs to be optional: trying to force it on everyone is just crazy.

hallway_monitor 3y ago
I agree with this. After entering my card into Toast once, now from any restaurant I can scan the code, enter my tip amount and I'm done. So much better than using either cash or a card.
- Reason077 3y ago
  Just the time saving in not having to flag down a waiter to get the bill is great!
xp84 3y ago
Similarly the online ordering for pickup sites that have sprung up to power the “non-DoorDash/Uber” option that restaurants want you to use. I like them, I like the usually not-inflated prices, but wish they would (A) be a fast, simple UI that works, and (B) stick to Apple/Google Pay and ask for no other info. No I don’t want to create a password or sign up for your newsletter!
naravara 3y ago
Why would we do QR code payments in a world where NFC payment flows exist and are well established?
- zuprau 3y ago
  iPhones can only do what Apple allows developers to do, which isn’t much. A random payment provider can’t use NFC on the iPhone, but they can use the camera. So here we are. QR payments are super popular all over Asia (and yes they suck, but you can blame Apple)
- Reason077 3y ago
  The QR code is physically attached to the table and links directly to the menu and/or your bill. QR codes are cheap (any printer can print one) so don't need special equipment. And people already understand how to use QR codes: they might not understand what an NFC tag/beacon is, or it might not work with all devices. What would NFC add that you can't do with a QR code? (Use of a QR code doesn't preclude paying in the normal way by calling over a server and using a contactless payment terminal. It just gives you the option to skip that and pay directly from your device.)

fmasood 3y ago

China has the best adaptation of this trend that I have seen. Simple UIs with no registration, and direct payment with Alipay and Wechat. Seamless and helps with the language barrier as well.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
winrid 3y ago
In many cases you probably never even have to leave Wechat. That's assuming you even needed your phone at all and the waiter didn't just scan your face to pay.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Scanning to pay ? Damn that's horrifying.
  - winrid 3y ago
    Maybe. They don't seem to mind...
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      You mean like they don't mind the great firewall, the good citizen passport and the concentration camp?
      - winrid 3y ago
        That wasn't part of the conversation. But I'll bite. Somehow I always end up defending China on HN but really I'm just sharing what I have seen/heard during my time there. The majority of the Chinese do not worry about those things. The great firewall is probably the greatest inconvenience you listed. However, the Chinese that come here and see FB and Google say, hey, maybe the firewall is not a bad idea. It's easy to circumvent anyway. It just blocks the majority of the population from western media. The social credit system I don't know anything about, sorry. The camps, AFAIK, are for Uyghurs classified as dangerous or high risk. At least, that's what the Han believe. The general understanding is if you do something like text "terrorism" as a Uyghur - you disappear for a while. I think part of this is because they are terrified the US will radicalize the muslim extremists. The truth is we barely have to - they hate the Chinese enough there are recorded events of the Uyghers just running around killing Han Chinese with knives. This was before cameras were super popular, but there is potato footage. This is partly why large cities in Xinjiang have such high security (think officers with MP5s outside every K-6 school) So, the Han do not protest at such camps.

Keyframe 3y ago

Hah, I thought I was the only one! You sit in-front of that tablet at EWR and fiddle around.. I thought it might be due to a lot of people/orders, but places are always available. It's not Heathrow-like lines to enter restaurant.

clbrmbr 3y ago

> All restaurants appear to be required to place tablets on the tables All the shops (except Starbucks) are operated by a single company: OTG. They are absolutely swimming in the monopoly dividend. There are several such airports in USA.

ekianjo 3y ago

How is that legal not to accept cash?

aeoliun 3y ago
I believe as long as the place of business is not a government agency, they are not obligated to accept all payment types. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
- jabroni_salad 3y ago
  maybe federally, but there are local laws too, including the states of massachusetts, rhode island, and new jersey. Also NYC, Philly, and San Francisco: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/16/fact-check-cashless-businesses-banned-only-some-local-state-laws/3330804001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/16/fac... Blocking unbanked people from the economy is sorta bad if you have any kind of homeless population.
OJFord 3y ago
Not that familiar with the US, but presumably (just because it seems reasonable, and is the case here) they don't have to serve you at all (err, as long as it's not discriminating on grounds of a protected characteristic) so it would be weird for the law to require accepting cash when it also allowed them to nominally comply with that but then refuse to serve anyone who wouldn't pay by card?
- ekianjo 3y ago
  cash is legal tender recognized by the country you are in. There should be no rationale to refuse it.
  - kbelder 3y ago
    I believe the general rule in the US (unless there are state-specific laws that override this) is that a company is free to not do business with a cash customer, but once they do business with a customer, they cannot refuse cash payment. IE, a store could refuse to sell products for cash, but a restaurant couldn't refuse to accept cash in payment for the meal you've already eaten. If you ate, and tried to give the restaurant $50 cash to cover the bill, what's the restaurant going to do? Call the cops? The cops will just tell the owner to take the cash or forget about it.

ward 3y ago

I hate Newark airport so much because of this. Even worse, as a non-American just visiting, I tend to not have mobile data stateside. The wifi is pretty shit in many spots, I've had to literally leave one place because I could not get a wifi signal to even order and the staff refused to help. All this nonsense while there is a tablet right in front of me! Stupid company that does this, stupid airport that allowed a company to do this.

alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
Newark is unquestionably one of the worst airports in the country. It seems to be carefully designed to make people feel unwelcome. It reminds me of the Terry Pratchett book where a building had been constructed in the shape of a demonic rune so that people moving around would activate it as if it were an evil prayer wheel.
- mmierz 3y ago
  It uses a lot of the same "hostile architecture" techniques that public spaces use to keep homeless people out. There's literally nowhere you can get comfortable, unless you want to lay on the ground in the middle of traffic.
- alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
  Side note, I was thinking of Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett + Neil Gaiman, and it was a roadway, not a building: > In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the sigil odegra in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds." The thousands of motorists who daily fume their way around its serpentine lengths have the same effect as water on a prayer wheel, grinding out an endless fog of low-grade evil to pollute the metaphysical atmosphere for scores of miles around. Magnificent book.

_fat_santa 3y ago

I had an experience at Newark where I sat down an opened one of the mobile menu's only for a 30 second ad to start playing, the server told me "oh yeah just watch the ad and you can order after that". Like really? I'm already paying way over what the food would normally cost and you guys have the audacity to stuff an ad in front of me before I even have the privilege.

jamal-kumar 3y ago
Nice I will never fly through here ever in my life and will pay like 300$ extra just to avoid it in the future if I have to. Thanks for the tip, that is actually super useful.
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
Reading this has made me unreasonably angry.
throw-ru-938 3y ago
If you're paying, you're still the product.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

seanhunter 3y ago

If it makes you feel any better, Newark's restaurant ordering system was terrible right from when they replaced all the restaurants and added those IPads at every seat even before they threw QR codes into the mix. I wrote a blog post about it in around 2014 or so (ignore the update date - that was me resurrecting the blog after a server failure) https://www.uncarved.com/articles/falafel/ https://www.uncarved.com/articles/falafel/

jjav 3y ago

Absolutely. Newark airport is a food desert disaster because of this. I've learned that if I need to stop through Newark, always buy enough food for the layover at the previous airport since it's impossible to get anything in Newark. Thanks for the Starbucks tip, I hadn't noticed that (as I don't drink coffee).