Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

The other week, I went for dinner at a place that had a online ordering system. My experience was as follows...

Arrive at the table, scan the QR code

No phone signal in the restaurant, so I need to connect to the wifi.

Connect to the wifi, get a captive portal

Need to put my phone number in to connect to the wifi; there is no signal, so I need to go outside, to receieve the confirmation code.

Connected to the wifi, scan the code again, choose my food.

Go to pay, need to register an account

Put my email address in, I already have an account on this food ordering service!?

Do a password reset

Put in my credit card details (why not use apple pay?).

This whole time, we're sat at a table, in theory to meet friends, but we've spent the first 15 minutes all glued to our phones!

I do not miss 400 options(!) nor the icky stick menus that sticks together like a 80's playboy magazine. Its good to see digital revolution embrace restaurants. I'd much rather struggle with my phone and my own grime than fiddling with the menu.

> Need to put my phone number in to connect to the wifi; there is no signal, so I need to go outside, to receieve the confirmation code.

Somewhere around these steps is where I would leave. It’s the equivalent of sitting at a table for 15 minutes waiting for the waiter to give my group menus[1] - they don’t want me as their guest.

[1] It happened, both the waiting and the leaving before ever getting menus. That restaurant taught me that if the service is bad before even ordering the food one shouldn’t be afraid to leave.

It's amazing how some can re-invent the simplest of ideas simply for the sake of getting tech rammed into the stream.

People forget that restaurants are a really modern invention. They were first introduced in France at the turn of the 19th century to provide more than just a way to order one type of food. The main reason they exist is the service, ambiance, and menu. Until "nice" restaurants came about, there were pretty much just taverns and inns, which were not renowned for their dining experience, and in most locales there was just one or maybe two, and the food selection wasn't great.

I think this is the crux of the difference of opinions. Dining at a restaurant is different things to different people at different times. I love the 'luxury' dining experience with all that it entails, will happily pay a lot of money to experience it, and I cannot wait to do that again. And in those cases, yes I expect that all aspects of the dining experience live up to that. But just as often I'm just hungry and want a halfway decent burger and beer served to me as quickly and efficiently as possible.

For most people and in most situations, dining at a restaurant isn't a luxury experience, it's just a way to get food.

“Acceptable”? To whom? This is why you sound entitled. The alternative is not dining out. You make it sound like restaurants are letting you down or should try harder. The word “acceptable” has no place in this conversation.

It’s fine that you don’t want to go out to restaurants right now. But you’re complaining about how inconvenient it is for you like there is no underlying reason for things to be in this state. Businesses ate also victims of this pandemic.

All of this makes me upset because it sounds extremely insensitive. The world is mourning millions of dead and you’re grumpy about your restaurant experience being ruined. Might be just your wording but one would expect a bit more empathy.

In a non-personal QR code setup, on the other hand, responsibility is shifted to some bureaucratic process which is nothing but frustrating.

As noted in the article, most/many people do not go out for diner to quickly buy and consume a meal, but to spend nice time with people. 15 minutes waiting time spent chatting with a waiter or with each other even has the potential to contribute to a positive experience, whereas 15 minutes setting up your smartphone definitely does not.

And if we want to talk history, having food made for you by other rather than making it yourself is not a new thing. Having a servant or a wife/mother/grandmother making you dinner was far more common in the past than it is now. I'd probably guess that more people know how to cook and cook their own food today, than at just about any other time in history

it's only a printed sheet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium

What I will not do is make accounts, or fill in an online order form. And I will not give out any personal information, including my email, without very good reason.

Last year here in Germany the government started to require restaurants to take down the name, address, phone number of every customer, so they could contact trace if there was an outbreak. Fine by me, in these special circumstances. But one restaurant we visited actually had a waiter show up with a tablet showing some online form I was supposed to fill out. I told her "No thanks, please get me a piece of paper and I will write it down". The owner then came with pen and paper, and we had a nice and friendly chat. He explained that he wanted to make it easy and "cool" with tech. It also turned out that his "tech-wiz" nephew had coded up that online form for him last minute (very cliché :p). I explained to him that while understandable, it's actually harder for a lot of people to type on these things (including me to a degree) than use a pen and paper - the owner thought for a few moments and admitted that he too finds it easier to use a real pen "at his age" - and that storing this kind of information in digital form is just one mishap away from really angry (former) customers and GDPR penalties, and how managing this kind of data is actually harder to get right in digital form than collecting some pieces of paper and running them through the shredder some 4 weeks later. We visited the same place about a month later, and they had switched to pen and paper entirely. I like to think our talk helped them with that decision.

I cannot really fault that owner. He was trying to do the best in a suddenly changed and shitty situation, and in his line of business he didn't really have to deal with privacy issues and the associated dangers and regulations before, other than cashless payments where the payment processor does most of the heavy lifting and compliance anyway.

The base opinion is: I haven't gone to such places since Covid began because the experience is less enjoyable and more stressful.

But it is said with contempt for the businesses and regulations, which the businesses cannot do much about. Even where it is open, they have to think about their employees and the risk they put them in. Not only that, but folks have been dining in tents and under wooden awnings - in booths even - enjoyably for decades. Where I am at, before covid hit they had heating and blankets outdoors so the restaurants could extend the outdoor seating season. The poster acts like it something horrible thrust upon them, when the fact is that they simply aren't a fan.

I think we've been depending on others for food prep for a very, very long time.

Any time a business claims to do something in the name of health or environmentalism, they are actually just using those as an excuse to cut corners.

I tend to not jump to malicious that can be attributed to virtue signaling and/or incompetence.

Absolutely. In this case however, there were multiple waiters refusing eye contact while passing right by our table and there were also other tables right by ours that got there after us and was being taken care of. It was as if we weren’t there.

I am waiting for the first restaurant that only has Cooks and Food Runners with no traditional waitstaff...

This will likely coincide with the removal of tipping as a custom in the US. We will move to kiosk ordering, press a button to get drink refills, pay at the table, and leave.

I.e Not have a captive portal if your only going to the menu, have the captive portal if you want full access to the internet

Clearly they cheaped out on hiring a network company that setup their wifi wrong

If I have jump through a bunch of hurtles to view your menu I am out

> you’re complaining

> All of this makes me upset because it sounds extremely insensitive.

> The world is mourning millions of dead

> a bit more empathy.

You're attacking a person for their honest opinion while knowing almost nothing about them, their life etc. In fact you sound angry and insensitive, please keep your emotions under control

Around here in door dining was only closed for a couple of weeks maybe a month or so. Then it was 50% capacity for a few months, then 75%, and we have been fully open for in door dinning for several months now

I bet you are one of those people that believe wait staff only make $2/hr right?

So with the paper pad waitress experience:

1. Responsive, zero latency interactions. 2. Accepts free form text entry. 3. No multi step UI control lookups. 4. Allows entry of customer modifications and requests to items. 5. Allows custom abbreviations.

Etc. etc.

If you're just unusually fastidious, I guess that's your right. But when you're claiming (or at least implying) that everyone must conform to those same levels to avoid covid-19 transmission - which is what we're still seeing quite a bit of - then that's hygiene theater.

It may seem a bit ridiculous to appeal to VAT - there are fairly 'ordinary' goods that are nevertheless deemed inessential and taxable after all - but I just wanted a way to say that I think GP's use of 'luxury' is being misinterpreted as a desire for fine dining; as I read it, I agree, it's discretional expenditure which has my discretion when I think I'll enjoy it. If I don't, why should I?

I don't think that's any more entitled than the converse view here that we have some sort of moral obligation to personally (and not through taxes) support restaurateurs through limited opening.

[0] - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/luxury

Looked at gsmarena now and indeed most models have dual-sim versions (as well as single sim). But when I look at a local store, it seems that roughly 1/2 has dual sims (that's including eSIM).

irrelevant.

I've been to a restaurant where they raised the prices of drinks to accomodate for using biodegradable plastic cups (sit-in restaurant!)... this is not enviromentalism, this is charging 20c for a 5c cup, instead of using glasses like a normal restaurant.

Also, the reusable cotton bags are just an excuse to charge more, because you'd have to reuse a cotton bag 7100 times, to make it as friendly as using plastic bags ( https://theconversation.com/heres-how-many-times-you-actuall... ). ...of course, paper is rarely an option.

I 100% prefer pay at table, and would 100% prefer order at table as well, less chance they get my order wrong

Here in Belgium the government asked a lot of mostly useless measures out of our bars and restaurants. You think they're happy paying hundreds, sometimes thousands of euros having Plexiglas screens installed all over the place, inconveniencing customers and staff alike?

Apple pay is, for the poster, a stand in for NFC pay of some sort. Which indeed requires a device, which indeed is its own class of requirement, but also, cash works even if less practical.

I still feel that these products are "sold" to restaurants and aren't actually all they're cracked up to be.

Even shadier shit happens where the restaurant makes employees repot tips that didn’t happen to keep above the minimum. Then they have to pay taxes off income not earned. Is it illegal? Yeah but it’s difficult to enforce and the people getting screwed are already very vulnerable (not your hipster big city wait staff)

I hold at 15% standard. Yet, many apps have defaults for 18%, 20%, 22%... all way up to 30% from what I've seen. And, they allow me to "Custom Tip" which I do once I find it (it's usually small and text instead of a button like the presets). However, once you select custom I'm back into dollars instead of percents so I have to do the math myself (and I don't even remember what the total was by this screen). At this point, I'm feeling like "okay you just don't want my money then because I'm not a whale of a tipper" so I have as some act of defiance started just skipping it altogether. I know it's not fair for that server but it's what little I can do to voice my dissent of the system.

I also believe that current iPhones sold in China support two physical SIM cards and no esim.

No it isn’t, GP was recounting historical norms. Get off your high horse.

Flashlight mode doesn't last very long, though.

That's on you and your location. I've been eating back at restaurants just fine for about a year now without a mask (for while it was mask on unless at a table, which is a bit of a joke to act like that helps anything). It was nice being able to walk in anywhere without RSVP but that's going away too as more and more people are back to work and social activities.

Is flashlight mode when you set it on fire?

1. QR code to PDF of full actual menu. If they direct you to a HTML page is usually awful and is accordion based mobile UI that involves a bunch of clicking in and out. A PDF can be zoomed in/out but all the content is right there.

2. QR code to pay. This is great when it comes on your bill and you can just pay and leave. However, if it allows Apple pay it's very smooth. Unfortunately, most of the systems involve a web based checkout flow including manual credit card entry and capturing more info than is really needed (email/phone) so they can spam you later.

Actually, now that I've think of it, I'm not sure I've ever seen the "large-screen credit card terminal with order entry" version in real life.

They've had this in Japan since before tablets in the form of vending machine restaurants. You order and pay at a vending machine and get a ticket, you sit down and hand in your ticket, and someone brings the food to your table.

I haven't been in many years, I guess now they have touch screen kiosks instead of old school vending machines.

The only downside? After deciding what to eat, adding the table number and pressing "order"... you discover that you can only pay by credit card (I mostly use debit).

No option to pay in cash. I had to go to the cashier, re-order everything, tell her my table number and pay in cash.

Not that huge of a deal, first world problems, but still - they could have stated right away the payment methods for the online thing.

We're talking patron UX here and point is I don't what to shoulder the burden. I didn't even want to calculate 15% tip in my head and you want me to start carrying cash everywhere, something I haven't done since Y2K was a concern. Spend 15 minutes waiting for the manager to come over? No thanks.

> Not tipping doesn't accomplish anything and the server who has no control over the system and is already underpaid gets screwed over.

I view that as "not my problem". I know it's wrong if the server gets screwed, I'm not arguing this is a just behavior on my part. But, if you extrapolate my behavior to all patrons the restaurant would get a hint real quick that people didn't want to tip 20%/25% and reduce the defaults. They know I'm dissenting it's just that I'm the only one dissenting so they're not even paying attention. Instead, what is happening is the opposite. Patrons were conditioned that 15% is too low. 20% is now standard, pushing up to 25% which will be standard in a couple years if trend continues.

FWIW, I hate tipping in general. I wish they were paid a fair wage and I was billed appropriately on the front end.

Well except, you know, literally a stylus.

There are lots of iPhone users and often business can getting better (lower) processing fees by accepting more secure methods like Apple pay so if it's literally just flipping a switch and possibly paying a bit less for processing why wouldn't a business do it?

To me, a waiter provides no value at all. I'd rather order at a counter and pick up the food myself. Then I don't have someone asking me "how is everything" when my mouth is full. I don't need to pay someone a 30% cut for this.

In several states they are. Washington St. doesn't have a lower minimum wage for servers.

You thought you were dissenting, but it mostly just reflects poorly on you.

Source - brother is a server.

Also, I don't feel like my check size is very related to the amount of work involved. At least in my 95% use case of 2-4 people. The waiter does the same thing, checks in on us just as much, still juggling 5-10 other tables. I'm there for an hour. I just don't see $15-30 of value in the service I got during my interaction (my typical check size is $50-100), that's where I land back on my 15% standard. I don't always see that value either, but it's what helps me sleep at night.

If I'm with 5+ people or stay longer than an hour or am eating at a higher priced place where waiter is probably serving fewer tables simultaneously then I adjust accordingly.

Another irk of mine is how alcohol falls into this equation. If I buy a $50 bottle of wine I'm supposed to give $10 tip when usually all they do is open the bottle? My rule is a dollar per serving. It's probably outdated rule and needs some adjustment for inflation as that's been my rule for a long time.

There's not enough people in the demographics the restaurant cares about to make an accommodation.

It's like when people complain pages are broken when they turn off JavaScript.

I would just leave to be honest

If the point is not to keep calculating the tip, that's worse. And then we would need to wait to get the change on the tip?

The context of this conversation is around restaurants being able to legally pay less because of tipping, however if they willing to violated the laws that we have now, why would they not also violate the min wage laws.

Around here an average meal at a restaurant would be about $14 lunch and $18 dinner per person.

So to make the often promoted $15/hr wage, the server would need to clear $96 in tips over the base wage of $3/hr. At an average of 18% tips that would mean the ticket revenue would need to be $534 for the shift. @16 avg per person that is about 4 people per hour, or 1 or 2 tables per hour

If the restaurant is that slow, that the server is only serving 1 table per hour, well chances are the server needs to look for another job anyway because that place will not be in business very long.

This is also why alot of servers I know prefer the tipped model over a higher base wage, if a strait 15/hr wage was created with no tips, many servers would make LESS money then under the current system

Most of the people calling for a $15/hr base wage have a delusional belief they will make $15/hr PLUS tips... that is never going to happen

A few converted to carry out only, and have not gone back to buffet style.

There are still a few open of course but no where near as many, and the ones that survived seems to be of lesser quality

In the end, I left my usual tip to the server and zero to the rest and left it for them to figure out, just like in every other restaurant on the planet. Servers make full, much higher than Federal minimum wage in my state plus tips, so really we should be abolishing tipping at this point IMO.

It almost does in Portland. Starting July 1st, it's $14 plus tips. There is no "tipped employee" minimum wage. It's the same for all. I think it will be $13 per hour in the rest of Oregon outside the metro area but there may be a third level for the most rural counties.

I guess I don't know how you go from the idea that you are accomplishing nothing while making someone else's day worse to being able to say "not my problem" and go on with your life.

I would much rather they were paid a fair wage. But I'm not going to voice my opinion on that matter by refusing to give them the money that I personally factor in as part of a meal anyway. I get where you're coming from, but I don't see how this method of addressing it is intended to accomplish anything.

Just realized this is another problem averted by Chip+PIN for payments. Since you have to physically touch the keypad, there's reason to take you to the PoS terminal, or the terminal to you, and no reason to take the card from you.

Don't mean to be too much of a jerk, but I may adjust my tipping downwards. I typically do closer to 20%.

You mean just like every restaurant in USA. I rarely tip in France, only if I had a really special interaction with the waiter/waitress. Once it was because the waitress was a student we chit chat a bit and ended up talking programming (!). I never tipped once in China (nobody does it there)

This whole $2 thing is bullshit that’s carried forward if you’re the average HN reader in a coastal city. My friends who are waiters across a spectrum of restaurants (in a coastal city) probably make $50-60 an hour, and double that at the higher end places, for a job that yes, can be exhausting (but not exceptionally more so than many other low-skill jobs), and requires no specific training or degree.

Arrive at the table, scan the QR code

Connect to the wifi, just a short PSK, no captive portal

Order food from web page (no registration or account, the QR code is already set up to be my table). Extra-options for the dishes available.

Initiate second order, add some 0-cost salt, mayo, and water.

Payment didn't involve the website at all, just paid at the register with cash like normal.

At no point was I urged to enter any personal information or install an app.

Chip+Sign is what we have here. I dont even know what my PIN would be for my Credit Card, Pin's are only really used for Debit cards but I almost never use my Debit card for anything at all.

Honestly if the minimum wage was increased appropriately we wouldn't have to bother with tipping at all.

[1] https://nypost.com/2021/04/05/low-risk-of-catching-covid-fro...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/opinion/coronavirus-airbo...

Did the slightly more than half the population throughout history also have someone else cook for them too? A woman's woman perhaps?

No, I'm not buying any argument that says a person is not privileged to have someone provide for them just because they consider the provisioner to be a lesser being like a woman or a slave. Quite the contrary in fact: I consider that a reinforcing argument for a privileged existence.

What a curious statement, American Stockholm Syndrome in full effect.

I'm in Australia and tipping is only really done in the case of exceptional service. The price on the menu is the price you pay. Nobody feels animosity towards someone who pays the price on the menu, and nobody feels guilt for "only" paying the price that was specified.

Also nobody would expect sub-par service or to be disparaged if they don't pay more, as sibling commenters have mentioned.

Much simpler for everyone - why should customers have to do convoluted maths to work out how much to subsidize a business that can't afford to pay their workers? That is pretty much the definition of an unviable business.

Billionaires get tax breaks while the lowest-paid workers buying power goes down every year without fail.

And no guillotines because they're all too busy trying to keep their head above water. GG billionaires.

Servants and maids where much more common in the past than now, especially among the middle class. Also it was more common to have several generations living under the same roof, so 1-2 people would often be preparing meals for 6-12 people. Today it is much more likely that you have 1-2 people preparing food for 1-4 people.

I strongly suspect that the proportion of people eating a meal they cooked themselves is almost certainly higher now than at virtually any point in history.

I'm moving towards a fixed amount. Since, as I mentioned elsewhere I don't see a strict correlation between menu price and work performed. The amount of work to bring me a steak is same as work to bring me a burger; but the steak might cost 3x more. Majority of dining experiences follow the same script and same amount of interaction with waitstaff so I'm thinking of just giving everyone $X and don't even consider what I spent. Maybe adjust up if we had appetizers, extra beverages, or some difficult situation. Having a toddler, I've left my fair share of huge "sorry for the mess" tips and that doesn't bother me at all.