That’s not a menu! That’s a QR code!
So I threw it on the ground
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So then the bartender says “Sorry, we don’t serve QR codes here.”
The moral of the story is
You can’t trust the system!
Man!
(Very Lemmy take, there)
My dads not a menu.
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I’m not an economist, but whlouldnt manipulated prices drive things more toward fair market value? A crusty menu meant to last a year is more likely to overshoot prices to cover market fluctuations that occur during that year. At least this is how I think of it.
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This makes me wonder whether there’s ever price discrimination going on. A system like this could give different prices based on what kind of phone you’re using if they wanted it to, and you wouldn’t necessarily know it.
Wh… why would they do that?
I guess maybe if a phone company is secretly paying them to, but why would a phone company go to restaurants to give their customers lower prices? And even if they did, what do they gain from that if they don’t want anyone to know?
And even if they did, the waiter would also have to take note of what kind of phone the customers use, and give them the respective price on the bill. One slip-up could reveal the scheme.
The idea behind price discrimination is that some customers will still buy the same product if it is offered at a higher price, while others will not. By figuring out which is which and offering them different prices, you can make more profit. For instance Uber is known to charge higher rates to customers with low phone battery, because they are probably more desperate and would be more willing to pay.
If a restaurant knows you have an expensive phone, they know you can probably afford more expensive meals and won’t walk out if the prices are high. If you have a cheap phone, they might want to tone it down a little to avoid driving you away. They might be able to make more money by doing this.
Also you wouldn’t need the waiter involved you can just check the user agent if all ordering has to be done through phones, the whole process would be automatic.
Wh… why would they do that?
If you’ve got a more expensive phone they’ll charge more because they assume you have more money.
Alternatively, if you’ve got a cheaper phone they’ll charge more so that they don’t have to cater to the “wrong type of people.”
How would this work though? You’re not ordering your food via the QR code link, you’re telling the waitstaff. Unless they ask you what price your saw, how are they going to correlate their variable price to a particular customer?
However, this would make it a lot easier to implement “peak pricing”. Their menu could automatically update based on time of day, or day of week, and certainly holidays.
I think that’s a huge reason places have kept the QR codes. It’s not entirely their fault. Their costs have unstable and constantly increasing lately. Reprinting new menus with pricing adjustments on a regular basis isn’t free in a industry that’s already slim margins.
Related pet peeve: restaurants that have a million items for a million prices, all of them basically the same. Example: sandwich shop not far from me. Every sandwich is +|- a dollar, same with every item. Takes forever for them to ring it up and the variance is pennies. Just charge $X per sandwich and maybe markup a few premium items (roast beef, avocado, bacon whatever).
When in doubt: simplify
Presumably you can place your order via the qr code to so less risk of human error transcribing it wrong or God forbid you get one of those annoying waiters that think they have a super memory and can hold more than 8 items in short term memory and don’t even write things down.
QR code menus and ordering systems are terrible IMO.
The tech often sucks, but more than that they make the entire restaurant experience worse.
I tried to keep an open mind when encountering them at first, but they often nullify any and all interactions you have with the waiters, and turn the restaurant from full service into something like a fast casual restaurant…yet they still prompt you for tips at the end of the meal and add additional percentage overcharge fees for “inflation” or whatever.
I don’t want a waiter to be over at my table every twenty seconds, but waiters shouldn’t be made pointless by a maître d’, a runner, and a busboy.
They’re anti-social shit dreamt up by the same kind of minds that gave us the horror that is self-checkout.
Eh, you sound like a bit of an extravert. I understand where you are coming from. I disagree and would rather have a good interface backed by an available and knowledgeable human only if trouble shooting or questions arise. I also love self check out😉. To each their own. Either of our preferred modalities can of course be implemented crappilly.
I’m just a person who likes to sit at a table and order like a person that paid to eat at a full service restaurant.
Neither you nor I should expect there to be “troubleshooting” in a full service restaurant. We’re not setting up a new iPad; we’re paying to be served.
Self-checkout is rife with not only anti-social vibes, but also involves possible legal trouble…and all so that the store didn’t have to hire a few extra checkout personnel.
Both of these “innovations” are largely for the benefit of the owners and largely at the cost of the people patronizing these establishments.
I don’t have a choice of stores, but I’m spoiled for choice in restaurants living in the city. I’ll vote with my feet.
I absolutely love self checkouts in shops, makes it more fast-in-fast-out kinda thing. But the very rare moments I have nowadays to go to a restaurant with my wife, I absolutely want to have a proper service and enjoy the evening as whole.
I can order McDonald’s with home delivery, don’t want that shit in a restaurant
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I am fine with it but I feel they should have alternatives. Some people don 't have a device, connection. Or have issues with using technology for whatever reason, being old, incapacitated, etc.
Shit cell service, and an inability to easily take in the menu online are my biggest gripes
What drives me up the wall is when it just links to a scanned image of the menu they used to have, so instead of a full sized menu, you have to pinch and zoom and swipe around on your phone. What’s the fucking point? I went to one and the menu was FOUR PAGES LONG like that! If I hadn’t been promising my daughter I’d take her, I would have walked out.
Folding phone works well for this. Kinda sucks that you need an $1800 device to have a decent menu viewing experience. I’m more miffed that they expect my reception to be a given. Towers go down, congestion happens, give me a physical menu!
It shouldn’t be on the customer to have the tech to view a menu. If you’re gonna run a restaurant, have a paper menu available to customers somewhere, even if your primary menu is behind a QR-code.
I went to a restaurant that had the barcode menu. I prefer a physical menu, but fine whatever. The problem was, there was no reception inside the restaurant, and you couldn’t connect to their wifi for whatever reason.
This happened to me recently as well, but while traveling when I was low on data. Like ok, I will use your stupid QR code menu, but then you better provide free functional wifi.
I love and seek out restaurants that use online ordering and payment. I don’t need someone waiting on me. I’m in the US and they are not paid a living wage, the work is difficult with little reward. Now there is a place in my neighborhood where you sit down the QR code is table based, interaction is simple, clear and designed to work (uses Toast as the backend iirc). You order, the order stays open till you pay it’s a restaurant/bar so if you need another you don’t have to do anything but tap on your phone. They have amazing helpful servers that are paid well. You pay on your phone and leave when you are done. It’s amazing.
I think this is more about power dynamics than currency and menus. I think many people just want or more accurately demand that others (with less power) to serve them. I’ve even heard people say “it’s not my job to check me out or take my order.” Those same people treat their waitress like shit, when those waitresses are paid basically nothing to take the abuse. Then they try to weasel out of the bill. Seen it time and time again.
Now, some restaurants do poor a poor implementation of modern menus and it’s frustrating. However… long term those that do it well will win. It reduces friction and costs leading to lower prices higher margins and quicker more accurate service.
I hate them. Will never go to a place that uses them.
Nobody will win. The waitress stays or will return and still get paid shit. The menu will get digitised because it’s cheaper. You know what less costs mean?
Higher profits.
The end.
Wake up.
You might want to reevaluate who needs to “wake up”. Right now the only difference I see between you and Jeff Bezos is who has the money.
There are many other successful ways to run a business. Co-ops are one example… The legal and regulatory framework of our society should encourage and reward making and encouraging pro-social ethical decisions not discourage them. I think our problem is how we treat each other - not how we order food. Ordering food is just the symptom of the greater ill.
As long as you think like Bezos, nothing will change and more of your money will flow to the rich.
Thus, why I suggest the “waking up” that needs to happen is to realize we are in an increasingly unstable dream/nightmare (depending on whether you have money or not) that we collectively need to choose a different way that truly does benefit everyone.
Oh yeah. I absolutely hate this new trend.
I don’t know why but the QR menus just piss me off in a service restaurant. I won’t use em (been bailed out by a date more than once).
For a counter place where they are just slinging me the food? Ok I guess. But if we’re out paying for a dinner that’ll hopefully lead to nookie, phones should be the last thing on the table.
I am serious. And don’t call me surly.
What’s meshurley’s phone number?
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Well, duh. I know. But the original joke works because it exchanges “surely” for the homophone “Shirley.” With “Shirley” already in the title I can’t do that, so swapping it for the not-quite-homophone “surly” seemed like the next best choice.
You didn’t get it.deleted by creator
You must be hilarious in conversations
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I use a LightPhone II which has no camera. It gets me out of this bullshit all the time.
Wait staff: “oh god, here’s the dude with the cameraless phone again 🙄”
“How insufferable and low tipping do you think he’ll be today?”
I was visiting family and we went to a restaurant in NC that did this and the waitress just shrugged and said “We are environmentally friendly, we don’t have paper menus. Borrow someone’s phone” and then walked away.
Questions I didnt get to ask… Like how much environmental impact does a dozen menus have? Also before you walk away… can I borrow your phone? I am not asking some stranger for the phone.
My sister ended up having a smartphone with her. We wanted to leave, but my mom wasn’t having none of it because “it would be impolite, they have already served us water”.
You know who else serves water mom? Prison, prison serves water. Is it impolite to leave prison!?
You gotta leave before your first cup of water. It’s one cool trick the prison industry doesn’t want people to know about.
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I seriously doubt that a webserver running 24/7 has less environmental impact than printing 50 pieces of paper one time.
Could be running on a service multiple restaurants can subscribe to. Also, paper menus could have to be replaced, whether by updates or damage.
I feel that. I can’t stand this crap and I get you wanna save paper but some of us don’t bring phones everywhere we go or we just have a flip phone or a phone without service. If you really wanna save paper instead of using more paper to print out a QR code just get a chalkboard or whiteboard
It would be nice if this was about saving paper but a website is being powered and that likely isn’t a good ecological trade. You could say it’s easier to change prices but it’s also easier to track you; your browser cookies are like a membership card.
God I hate this world
They keep trying this in our small town, and they find out.
At my age my phone is too small sized for me to be able to view a menu properly.
Now if they want to loan me a tablet to review the menu I’d be fine with that.
Regardless of age, I think you could probably argue that the small, glowing rectangle in your palm is an inferior reading and dining experience compared to an actual menu.
That’s not even to mention the unholy abomination of a tech stack that a system like this would be— Camera, QR decoder, web browser, WiFi/cellular, their web server— That signal might travel hundreds of miles to your ISP, their host, and then back— Probably a couple layers of outsourcing/contracting/helper apps they used to set it up— Though it’s apparently normal to take all that for granted these days, it’s still sorta ridiculous.
I guess I’ll have the dinosaur in the middle of the QR code
