I say the same of "menu apps" in restaurants. This crap existed before the pandemic but covid made's it a million times worse. Jesus Christ am I sick of scanning a QR code and straining at my tiny phone screen to choose my order from a crappy, unresponsive website where each page takes ten seconds to load. How is this possibly an improvement over a paper menu?
It is am improvement from the restaurant's point of view. They get dine-in order and take-out orders through the same system, where they all appear instantly on a reliable system right in the kitchen. Paying waiters to walk to your table, listen to what you want, and either scribble on a notepad or navigate the same annoying website is not a good use of resources.
I know that the restaurant's concerns are not necessarily your concerns, but unlike many other industries, neighbourhood casual dining is competitive enough that the savings probably get passed on to you.
All restaurants i have been to that had QR code menus either had waiters that would come to you for your order (just skipping the giving a menu part) or you had to order at the bar. Never have i seen such a order online system, probably because it would be dead easy to adversarially order food to be wasted.
I was recently at a restaurant that used a QR menu. However, they are in a weird location and have no cellular service for my <major carrier> provider. They also have no wifi. I simply couldn't get enough connection (a trickling 1-bar) to actually load the menu.
They had no paper menus.
I had to use another patron's phone to get the menu to order. Nonsense.
The whole back-and-forth of this, asking the server to try to find a paper menu, etc took almost 20 minutes, and left me as a customer immensely frustrated with the business and despite that it is a very unique spot, I haven't been back since.
After scanning one QR code for a restaurant menu in 2020, I resolved not to repeat that experience. Subsequently requested and usually received a paper menu, even in 2020-2021. On the rare occasion that one was not available, a dish was chosen via Socratic chat (non-GPT).
At least my phone is back lit and I can pinch zoom to read it. As you get older, reading a paper menu with a small, poorly chosen font in the "mood lighting" present in many restaurants becomes quite the chore.
