Bring back menus, QR codes are terrible

I gotta say, I disagree with this piece. I, for one, love QR code menus. I can pinch zoom rather than squint at a menu with small/unreadable fonts in dim lighting. I don't need to badger the already exhausted wait staff on a busy night when they forget to drop us a menu or two. When orders are taken online, rather than awkwardly force a friend to not go to the bathroom (or take their kid to the bathroom) until a server can take their order, they can just order and then go. I do think restaurants should handle payment themselves and have the option for paper menus or menus posted on a wall if needed, but otherwise I'm a fan.

Wait, restaurants are making you order from an app too?? So now you don't really need your 'exhausted wait staff' so much. Hire less wait staff as a portion are now are underutilized. Now some wait staff have no jobs, and the remainder work the same exhausting shifts. The reason these wait staff get tips is because they work so hard, with less service comes less tips. Now you have a whole industry of overworked AND underpaid staff.

Any efficiencies you are seeing will be refactored and stretched out as any business cannot afford to carry fat if they want maximum profit and competitive edge (price).

This whole inconvenience of a friend going to the bathroom is an incredibly weak argument for foregoing the tradition and ceremony of interacting with a person who will provide you with a meal. If you want to live in a McWorld where every step of your dining experience is as sterile, efficient, and touch free as possible then I am sad for you. That's not what a meal with friends and family means to me, it's not just about eating for sustenance.

Why do you draw the line at taking payment?

To each their own, but to me this ceremony provides zero value. Waiters take the order and may comment on the weather, it's not like we're developing a deep friendship here.

The "tradition" is to sit, wait for a waiter to appear. Ask for purpose (lunch? big meal? just a drink?). Then you wait again for the correct menu to appear. Then you get asked for a drink. And wait for the drink. And then comes the longer wait where the waiter tries to detect when you are ready to order, if they see it at all.

Combined, that's some 20-30 mins in and the prepping of your meal hasn't even started yet.

Now if you're the kind of person that's going to be in there 3-4 hours anyway, the ritual doesn't harm, but it doesn't add much value either. It's needlessly slow and inefficient.

Your future dystopian nightmare is already here, and it's fine. In the Netherlands, some sushi restaurants work as follow. You are seated. There's an iPad for everyone, and people just tap what they want. Some minutes later, your food arrives. This supposed cold-hearted efficiency means I get to spend more time engaging with my friends, the very point of the visit.

By the way, you're not doing restaurants any favors with a slow and long visit. It means they can't use your table twice. So finish your meal in 1.5-2 hours and if still not bored with your friends, go to a damn bar.

3-4 hours is a long time. That sounds like a leisurely dinner set on "Italian Mode" [no offence] with a reservation, not a work lunch on Tuesday in the US.

This ritual or ceremony of waiter, menu, waiting, ordering, signalling for the cheque that you apparently find vile... I enjoy it. Any inefficiency you have declared is part of the experience of going out to eat.

You want fast food? Go get fast food.

You want a butler and cook? Hire them.

You want to go out to dinner? Here's a waitress, menu, and some time for walking back and forth between their station and your table and their other tables in their zone.

All of this is, or at least should be, factored in to the restaurant's business. It's been 100 years, at least in the US. If they don't get it by now, at least you should.