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Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

(slate.com)
527 points lxm | 16 comments | 29 Jun 21 03:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.76s | source | bottom
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sksksk ◴[29 Jun 21 08:51 UTC] No.27673432[source]▶
When they work well, they're really good, but when they work badly, they're _really_ bad.

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!

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HelloNurse ◴[29 Jun 21 09:00 UTC] No.27673485[source]▶
Assuming there was another restaurant nearby, I'd have simplified the process to "go outside". If a restaurant is too cheap to print a menu, why should I consider it good enough for me?
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topicseed ◴[29 Jun 21 09:19 UTC] No.27673590[source]▶
With covid, many restaurants removed paper menus to avoid transmission. I hate QR codes so that was a move I was not in favour of.....
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jbluepolarbear ◴[29 Jun 21 09:46 UTC] No.27673766[source]▶
Restaurants open during the pandemic has been a joke. Outside in a tent/wood box never fixed any problem. I have not been to a restaurant since March 2020. Going to different restaurants was my favorite hobby, but the experience has become so hostile that I won’t go back until I can sit inside without a mask, have a menu, and not have to worry about a coughing idiot.
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jiofih ◴[29 Jun 21 10:11 UTC] No.27673905[source]▶
Your comment reeks of entitlement. Restaurant owners have been struggling to survive by serving customers any way they can. Sorry your high dining-out standards can’t be met while a few million people die from the pandemic.
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jbluepolarbear ◴[29 Jun 21 10:22 UTC] No.27673965[source]▶
How is this entitlement? Dining at a restaurant is a luxury, if I’m going to spend my money on a luxury, I’m going to choose an experience that is safe, enjoyable, and to my interests. Why are you so upset? Why do you feel that the conditions in place are acceptable? Personally, I grew up quite poor and never got to go to restaurants. It wasn’t until I started making a little money in my late 20s that I could start to go to restaurants as a way to remove myself from my current stressful life and just unwind for a bit. For me restaurant dining is an experience and the experience offered at present isn’t appealing.
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1. dagw ◴[29 Jun 21 11:06 UTC] No.27674211[source]▶
Dining at a restaurant is a luxury

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.

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2. bregma ◴[29 Jun 21 11:29 UTC] No.27674376[source]▶
It smacks of entitlement when dining at a restaurant is considered basic necessity and preparing your own meals is considered a luxury. Think about history. Think about the vast, vast majority of people on earth. Consider just how entitled one must be to have the help prepare your basic necessities of life.
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3. dagw ◴[29 Jun 21 11:35 UTC] No.27674419[source]▶
By that argument, indoor plumbing and safe running water can also be considered luxuries. Which, while true, is rather reductivist.

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

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4. atatatat ◴[29 Jun 21 11:51 UTC] No.27674551{3}[source]▶
Stirring Mac and cheese or warming a Hot Pocket is not on the same level as roasting a pig and such, but I agree with the local point you're making.
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5. mkr-hn ◴[29 Jun 21 11:59 UTC] No.27674619{3}[source]▶
It's remarkable how much those restaurants they uncovered in Pompeii resemble modern versions.

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

6. Broken_Hippo ◴[29 Jun 21 12:28 UTC] No.27674881[source]▶
Fast food has been a staple of life since antiquity: For centuries, folks went to the baker to get bread, since home kitchen facilities were very limited. Women have been stuck in home kitchens for eons, with male family members not learning even basic skills unless they were employed as cooks or bakers.

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

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7. Werewolf255 ◴[29 Jun 21 12:42 UTC] No.27674995{4}[source]▶
These are all just spinning food products around or on a heat source, sounds like we could just abstract and reuse that module without coding up a behavior for each 'new' cooking technique.
8. jbluepolarbear ◴[29 Jun 21 13:22 UTC] No.27675418{3}[source]▶
That’s extremely sexist. I for one am an excellent cook, I’m not a women, and I haven’t been employed for my cooking abilities. I learned to cook because I wasn’t able to experience restaurants. I was tired of the bland boring food my parents made. I started cooking our meals and I would copy from tv shows, magazines. I wanted better food, but couldn’t afford to have it prepared for me so I learned a skill. Any restaurant food is considered a luxury to me. I aggressively budgeted so that I could start going to restaurants as an adult. My cooking abilities only got better when I was able to taste the food that I’d been mimicking for so long. For me a normal family meal cost $20, a single value meal at McDonald’s is $10. So for my family a meal at McDonald’s would be $40 minimum. That increases as the greatly as you transition into sit down meals; where a meal is $15 per person and that’s before tip so $80. How are these not luxury expenses? 1 meal at a restaurant cost as much as 4 at home and those home meals will also produce leftovers for lunches. Before COVID I would eat out 1 times a week with my family and 1-2 times a week for lunch. At that frequency it’s still a lot of money and I have always treated it as a luxury expense that is part food and part entertainment.
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9. OJFord ◴[29 Jun 21 13:49 UTC] No.27675726[source]▶
For all people in all situations in the UK, dining at a restaurant is subject to VAT; it is therefore considered a luxury (in the sense of being pleasant but not necessary [0]) as opposed to essential 'way to get food'.

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

10. chalst ◴[29 Jun 21 14:04 UTC] No.27675903[source]▶
In developing countries, the urban poor frequently don't live in places with cooking facilities and have to eat prepared food.
11. prewett ◴[29 Jun 21 14:27 UTC] No.27676239{4}[source]▶
Recounting historical realities is sexist? How does one talk about history then, since history is chock-full of inequalities? And might there be some decent, non-sexist reasons why women cooked and men didn't, consistently, over large periods of time and many different cultures?
12. imwillofficial ◴[29 Jun 21 14:30 UTC] No.27676275[source]▶
When you’re poor, dining out is a luxury. Like GP, I grew up poor and still think of something like AppleBees as frivolous and expensive. I like to have an enjoyable experience as well. The hygiene theater has really reduced that experience. Menus being an unexpected casualty of the pandemic.
13. imwillofficial ◴[29 Jun 21 14:32 UTC] No.27676321{4}[source]▶
“That’s extremely sexist.”

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

14. Broken_Hippo ◴[29 Jun 21 15:22 UTC] No.27677140{4}[source]▶
I'm the poster you responded to, and I think you've taken some things out of context. Of course there is sexism. I was talking about history, and history has a lot more sexism than a lot of western, more "liberal" countries retain - and this is a fairly recent development.
15. bregma ◴[30 Jun 21 17:23 UTC] No.27691132{3}[source]▶
> Women have been stuck in home kitchens for eons ... we've been depending on others for food prep for a very, very long time.

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.

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16. dagw ◴[01 Jul 21 09:43 UTC] No.27697627{4}[source]▶
A woman's woman perhaps?

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.