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Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

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527 points lxm | 5 comments | 29 Jun 21 03:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.937s | source
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infecto ◴[29 Jun 21 14:20 UTC] No.27676119[source]▶
It's really interesting to see how a crowd of tech workers who generally are trying to pave the way are so quick to attack and be negative.

Like all things in life, when its implemented well it works and when it does not it is terrible. I still think there is room for this to be the future though. I say this as a westerner but perhaps the west is not ready for it yet but I really enjoyed the experience of using QR codes in China. Go to a restaurant I just get shown where to sit and don't need to waste time with the host/server giving me menus or telling me anything. If I have questions they are there to answer the but I can also just sit down, scan the QR code, menu opens up and I can order food. Food just shows up minutes later. When I am done I go to the front and pay with Alipay.

The benefits to me of not having physical menus is huge. From the business perspective there is less interaction time necessary to serve a diner. Sure if this is an upscale high touch experience physical menu is where it stays BUT the majority of dining experiences are not like this. The menu is up to date and easy to modify. Possible to include multiple pictures and information about the food.

I might be wild but I really like the experience and wish more places would adopt it. Like all things I think here in the west its still too new so we have a mixed bag of good and bad implementations. Give it a few years and I think it will be narrowed down to the POS providers who offer it as a feature.

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alisonatwork ◴[29 Jun 21 14:58 UTC] No.27676731[source]▶
This process was one of my most hated "innovations" in food ordering in China. It turns every restaurant into a production line fast food operation, exactly like American chain restaurants. At that point, why even bother going to a restaurant at all? Might as well just order a Sysco-equivalent microwave meal at the supermarket or 7/11, because the flavor and the service will be exactly the same.

For me the best restaurants in China were the mom and pop joints where the person who takes your order is also the person who cooks your meal, or at least where you can see into the kitchen from the dining room so you can call out a request or ask a question as they're preparing it. This way it's much easier to figure out what's in the dish, see if the food is fresh, ask for it a bit more spicy, add another side, whatever. It makes the meal into a more of a social experience, and something that feels homey and satisfying rather than mass-produced.

Ironically going to these sorts of Chinese chain restaurants with the QR code menu, they also tended to be twice the price of the mom and pop joints, so whatever money they might be saving by eliminating a server is definitely not passed down to the consumer.

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1. cddotdotslash ◴[29 Jun 21 17:00 UTC] No.27678636[source]▶
How does ordering via QR code change the quality of the food itself? Just because you clicked a button to order the food instead of telling a server what you want who then wrote it in a notebook and went back to a terminal to enter it, should not have any bearing on how the food tastes.
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2. alisonatwork ◴[29 Jun 21 17:17 UTC] No.27678864[source]▶
The QR code doesn't change the quality of the food. It's just a correlation that the restaurants that moved to a QR code ordering system tended to also be the ones that hired kids who didn't much care about cooking, and who just produced the same bland dish every time, regardless of who was ordering.

I do my best to eat plant-based most of the time, so I always appreciate when I can have a chat to the cook or server to see what is in the dish and if they can avoid garnishing with ground pork or whatever. To me that's the whole point of going to a restaurant, to have someone cook for you personally. If you're just going to get a production line meal, then you might as well order from a vending machine or get a meal to go from a convenience store. No judgment on those meals, they are fine too, but when I go to a restaurant I expect a bit more of a personalized service.

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3. asdff ◴[29 Jun 21 17:19 UTC] No.27678894[source]▶
What changes is you no longer have a customer service rep on the line, which is what you de facto have with a server at your table. I could ask them questions about all sorts of specific ingredients on the menu so I end up guessing nothing about what I am ordering. For online menus, sometimes you take a shot into the dark because you can't get any description on the item besides "89. - Orange chicken" or however it comes up on the online menu. Does it come with rice? How big is the portion? Who knows.
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4. bko ◴[29 Jun 21 19:49 UTC] No.27680859[source]▶
> also be the ones that hired kids who didn't much care about cooking, and who just produced the same bland dish every time, regardless of who was ordering

I personally go to restaurants for consistency. Do you really think waiters taking orders pass along information about who ordered the order and their preferences? You can give instructions to the waiter but from my experience it's not carried a large chunk of the time. Every layer is a place for miscommunication, so going consumer -> app -> cook is a lot less likely to be messed up than consumer -> waiter -> notebook? -> terminal -> cook. There's generally a high turnover for waiters and I don't think they're all super informed about the meals, but I guess it depends what restaurant you go to. But with online ordering a restaurant that can't afford to have a highly trained wait staff can still deliver high quality information to customers

You can provide a lot more information on an app about a dish, including pictures, ingredients and customization options than a person.

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5. alisonatwork ◴[29 Jun 21 20:37 UTC] No.27681405{3}[source]▶
I think there is a misunderstanding in this thread about what types of restaurants provide these QR code ordering systems in China.

From my perspective, if I need to use an app to select my dish, applying only the pre-approved customizations, then the experience is no different from ordering delivery. If you live in the US, then perhaps this experience is not unusual, since it's a lot like the experience of visiting a chain restaurant - same menu in every location, same customizations available, same "perky" waitstaff, same supplier of ingredients behind the scenes - it's basically just a more expensive version of fast food. Adding a QR code ordering system to this kind of restaurant is not changing much about the experience other than the speed of ordering.

But in other countries - notably China - there is a whole nother class of restaurants that is both cheaper and more personalized than a chain. And these family-owned restaurants are the ones that are being edged out by more expensive, less culinarily interesting restaurants whose primary appeal appears to be gimmicky apps that provide either the same or less functionality than a food delivery app does.

It might be that these chain restaurants are successful because a lot of people prioritize consistency over everything else. But I feel like in China in particular it is more trend- and status-based. People think it's cool to order on their phones instead of talking to the server, or they think it's classy to eat what the folks in Shanghai are eating instead of the local food from their region.

Personally, I would prefer to see more local restaurants and less chains, not just in China but everywhere in the world. I understand that's an orthogonal issue to QR code ordering, just in China it does appear to be correlated.