Permit me if you will a moment to share my beef about a dining trend: the QR code menu.
It’s the COVID-19 hangover that annoys me most. I’ve seen it in restaurants all over Sydney – most of them high-end – which like everyone in the hospitality game may be struggling to return to post-pandemic profitability; but this is not the way to do it.
QR code menus have become popular in restaurants.Credit:Bloomberg
I understand why the QR code gained traction during these past few years because of the need to minimise points of contact between patrons and restaurant professionals. Yes, I get that a paperless restaurant provides a more sanitary alternative to physical menus, and means waiters don’t need to touch potentially germ-laden credit cards. But for me, ordering from a digital waiter is dehumanising and disconnecting.
Not only do I not like ordering this way, but I am appalled that after you use the app to order, it asks for a tip. Really?! They should be giving ME a discount for moonlighting as my own waiter.
Surely I’m not the only one to feel that the joy of restaurant dining comes from the personal touches: the interaction with the waitperson who can recite the menu like a piece of poetry, or the sommelier who can explain the slope of a valley where a wine comes from and why it goes with a particular dish.
I still get misty-eyed at the memory of some of the best meals of my life in France and California, and it has not just been the food, wine and setting, but the wait staff that have made them special. I’m happy to tip for the part people play in creating the ambience. But to tip an app? That’s a bit rich.
Ah, the good old days. Credit:
Not only that, I can’t help but hear myself as a parent insisting the phone, like any screen, should not be a dining table utensil. I find it loathsome in my home, so why should I feel differently at a dining establishment? Not to mention elderly people who don’t have a mobile phone or know how to use it, or others who simply refuse to use it for such purposes.
As we know too well, technology often lets you down. Often the app doesn’t work, or you are asked for a PIN that has to be entered and re-entered on your phone and has you going around in digital circles. Surely getting up and walking to the bar and ordering from a real bar tender is quicker in this case.