One thing I’ve noticed over the last few years: none of Michelin-star, tasting menu, $200 and up per plate restaurants have QR code menus. And regardless of personal taste or any kind of objective assessment of pros and cons of digital menus, whatever upscale space converges on, becomes the status symbol. So digital menus are bound to become a symbol of cheap places, if they haven’t already.
I hate QR code menus so much! It's not just the fact that staring at my phone is the last thing I want to be doing when I'm out having a nice dinner, but trying to see what the restaurant offers through a tiny little screen is also much worse than reading a proper menu. Instead of just looking at what's available, it becomes a whole fiddly process: pinching to zoom, panning around, zooming back out, scrolling around, zooming in again - like trying to read a book through a microscope. Just annoying.
QR code menus are just annoying. Scrolling is significantly worse than pages, because at least with pages you can have a page bookmarked with your finger and flip back scan quickly if you saw something you liked. And trying to do a shared order for a table on a phone sucks.
Does this sort of "status symbol" thing really matter to the average restaurant goer though?
I've never cared about it, with my only concern being if the place has something I'd be interested in eating and if it seems sanitary. Only reason I don't go to supercheap fast food places often is that their options for vegetarians tend to be pretty limited (particularly since I'm also not a big fan of vegan "meat", I want vegetarian food that's good through being vegetarian rather than despite it).
> none of Michelin-star, tasting menu, $200 and up per plate restaurants have QR code menus
Waiters and Bussing staff cost money, and are much more expensive now. Margins and salaries are high enough in $$$$ restaurants that they can afford staff.
In all honesty, I don't really remember ever having concierge waiter service at restaurants as a kid in the Bay Area, but then again we never really went to white people restaurants.
