It's Time to Say Goodbye to the QR Code Menu

Three years ago, when the pandemic was sweeping the globe faster than I sweep a restaurant dining room at the end of a shift, the rules for dining out changed every week. In 2020, no one was sure how Covid spread so we all became germaphobes, slathering our bodies in hand sanitizer and washing our groceries before bringing them into our homes. When restaurants started reopening, they struggled to stay afloat amid ever-changing regulations on what was deemed safe. Gone were the salt and pepper shakers that had so comfortably lived on the tables since the dawn of diners. They were banished, along with tabletop condiments, pre-set silverware, and menus, only to be supplied upon request to ensure they had been disinfected after the last customer used them.

Now, most people only look at the pandemic in the rearview mirror, but there are remnants of pandemic era changes still lingering in restaurants. One of them is random pieces of plexiglass awkwardly separating booths and the other is QR codes that serve as menus.

The QR coded menu was a necessity when we all thought that physical menus were covered in Covid cooties. Menus are dirty enough, but factor in a side of coronavirus and they became downright untouchable. QR codes were also beneficial during the height of the pandemic because menus were constantly evolving due to do supply chain issues and rapidly changing prices. It was much easier to adjust the online menu that the QR code took customers to than it was to print out 20 new paper menus every time the price of a cheeseburger went up another 10%. QR codes were ubiquitous. They were laminated, illuminated, and uncontaminated. We all adjusted to this new way of perusing menus and now, three years later, QR codes are still with us. Isn’t it time to let those go?

Some people may enjoy having the menu on their phone in the palm of their hand, but when I go out to eat, I long for a menu that I can read without scrolling. I’m tired of having to navigate a website menu to look at a food menu. Tapping one icon for entrees and then hitting the back button to tap the cocktail icon and then going forward again to reread the food description is more than my fingers want to do. Between Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Netflix, my screen time is already though the roof. Going to a restaurant should be a time to log off, not log on for more squinting and scrolling. And believe it or not, there are some people in this world who do not have smartphones. There are others who do have them but have not quite processed how QR codes work.

Restaurants, please give us our menus back. You don’t have to do away with the QR codes completely. They have earned their place in the restaurant industry. They stepped up when we needed them and their service is appreciated, but some of us are longing for a good old-fashioned, sticky, bent up, bacteria ridden, menu and we don’t want to be judged for asking for it. Physical menus and QR codes can happily coexist at one table, just like bacon and eggs or vodka and tonic. Give customers the option. Let’s stop assuming that everyone wants to be on their phone as soon as they sit down to dine. Some of us want to put our phones away at dinner and forget they exist. Well, unless we’re using the flashlight on it to read the menu because the font on menus is ridiculously small and the lighting in restaurants is too dim.