The Welcome Demise of the Restaurant QR Code

In the midst of the pandemic, dining out was, for me anyway, a treat akin to visiting Disney World in my youth.

?“Oh, the thrill,” I thought as my companion, or companions, and I entered a dining establishment, where all tables were encased in plexiglass and the hostess greeted us wearing what may as well have been a hazmat suit.?

At our table, hand sanitizing lotion fought for space alongside the salt and pepper shakers, and flatware consisted of disposable utensils. Still, cutting a porterhouse steak with a plastic knife seemed a minor inconvenience in exchange for leaving my house to eat a meal prepared by a professional chef.?

No doubt that chef had created specials which were about to be described, in succulent detail, by the server headed our way with what we assumed would be menus.

?Instead, we were told to access the menus via this series of black, splotchy dots, also known as QR codes, and have our orders ready when the server returned. That is, unless we just decided to send our orders directly to the kitchen and hope technology was working that evening.

Often, it wasn’t. Romantic dining during the pandemic often devolved into couples eating not via candlelight, but via cellphone glow. Cries of “I can’t read this'' and “Where’s the QR reader on an iPhone?” passed as dinner conversation.??

Even as restrictions eased, QR-enabled ordering remained, causing diners like myself, who still prefer printed books and writing checks by hand, to wonder if the restaurant menu would shortly lie in a museum alongside a rotary phone; part of an exhibit called “People Really Used This Stuff!”

?Thankfully, the menu may be making a comeback.

?The New York Times recently reported that more restaurants are returning to handheld menus, although QR codes remain as alternatives. Diners are, by and large, using physical menus, preferring to leave their phones on their persons and only pull them out in case of emergencies.

?Checking sports scores, for instance.

?Sarcasm aside, I side 100% with QR naysayers. If I only had to scan the code once, I might have a different opinion. But I am constantly dealing with the “vanishing menu.”? Oh, sure, when I am able to line up the square borders on the phone's QR app, the menu appears. I spend the next few minutes scrolling the wine list, telling the server I will be ready with my entree choice when he or she returns with my cabernet.

?Back I go to the menu and…wait, what happened? The menu is unlike a web page, which stays on my phone until I swipe it away. I have to rescan and, because my memory seems to grow worse by the day, I find myself doing this multiple times until I have relayed all meal items to the server.

?This scenario occurred recently at a Chicago Mexican restaurant, featuring a staff who apparently never read the New York Times article. The waitress came by, pointed at the QR code and disappeared. Out came my phone; my dining companion did the same, and we spent the next five minutes scrolling vertically and horizontally until we had decided on our orders.?

?“I’m having the flautas,” my companion said.

?“Oh, where were those on the menu?” I asked.

?“Right below the enchiladas.”

?“I didn’t see those,” I said. “Let me look…wait, let me scan again and THEN look.”

?In between scrolling and rescanning, I looked around and saw all the restaurant’s tables were occupied. The diners were also in various stages of ordering via their phones.? Who knows? If we all had paper menus, maybe our meals would have been served faster, we’d exit the premises faster and new guests would be able to find empty tables and experience flautas.

?Personally, I don’t care if the menus are written in crayon. Just give me something I can hold, with items I can point to. Restaurateurs, if you have returned to the handheld menu, bravo! Now build on that concept by placing signs outside your establishments, proclaiming “Try the lasagna. And the menus!” See what happens.

?There’s nothing wrong with going back in time.

Need some laughs at your next corporate event? Greg Schwem is the only choice. A noted #motivational #humor #speaker whose clients include Microsoft, IBM and Southwest Airlines, Greg also write the nationally syndicated Humor Hotel column for the Chicago Tribune syndicate and is the host and creator of the #streamingtv series A Comedian Crashes Your Pad