QR codes have replaced restaurant menus. Industry experts say it isn’t a fad

I saw this roll out in China five years go when we lived there as a family for some years. The mobile platforms there are much more highly integrated than in the West, with in-built payments and reviews all in-app. So it was all very friction free. The locals were not all happy about it. Younger people took to it well. But it was great for expats who found the language(s) hard to navigate person to person. It cut down on wait times in busy restaurants and those with staff hesitant to serve foreigners with likely no local language skills. It seemed more efficient as the waiters generally took your order and then rekeyed into an order app, either there and then or at the serving station. I guess at high-end restaurants it would lack the personal and tailored dining experience. But for average places I found it an improvement over the often spotty experience of in person order taking with mistakes in ordering or forgotten items etc. It’s new so not everyone likes it. Without better integrated payment and feedback the UX will likely be clunky for a good while.

I find it unusual that it is preferable to make a network connection probably half way across the world to retrieve list of food than have it locally available. Restaurant 802.11 portal pages should have a menu on it.

The true dark pattern at the restaurant is in the checkout screen. Often with the waiter standing next you while you fill it out. Tip options used to be 15, 18, 20% or something close. More recently, I've seen 20, 25, 30%. Ingenious, but not cool.

Industry experts want everyone to get used to them so they can start filling them with ads is my guess. No thanks.

Besides QR code menus, a wonderful breakthrough has been the prevalence of QR-code bills at the end of the meal which allow the patron to pay without going through the credit card and credit card slip dance. It’s delightful not to need to needlessly wait for ten minutes at the end of each meal!

What's the advantage over a regular menu? That you don't have to wait for the waiter? I get the point when paying but for the menu I'm not seeing it. Is the entire menu baked in the QR code or is it actually just a URL to a website?

A/b test on pricing(or even personalization of pricing) comes to mind.

How advanced are the analytics these provide? Depending on what signals they collect,I could see this being used to map with demographic data, etc.

I&#x27;ve walked out of restaurants without menus. I&#x27;m not the only one.<p>The last thing I want to do at a restaurant is to pull out my phone.

This really baffles me. What does a restaurant with no paper menus do if a customer doesn&#x27;t have a phone (or is visited, from abroad, say, and doesn&#x27;t have mobile data)? What about a family with kids (and&#x2F;or grandparents) who don&#x27;t have phones?<p>I have a phone, of course, but I don&#x27;t take it with me everywhere I go. If I were going out for dinner, at least locally, I&#x27;d probably leave my phone at home. I don&#x27;t want to be interrupted with emails or messages (or car warranty phone calls, which seem to be the only flavor they come in these days) while I&#x27;m eating. Spoils the appetite. If a waiter refused to give me a menu -- if a phone were, in other words, a prerequisite for dining -- I&#x27;d leave forthwith to look for a different spot.<p>We haven&#x27;t really gone out to eat much since the pandemic started. Perhaps a few times at places with outdoor tables. I&#x27;ve never not been given a traditional menu at those places, though. Is this really as prevalent (&quot;QR codes have replaced restaurant menus&quot;) as the article suggests?

<i>experts say it isn&#x27;t a fad</i><p>QED: It&#x27;s a fad.