I often can no longer ask for a menu at restaurants that expect me to scan a QR code. Well…I can ask, but they don’t have any to provide.

I just leave restaurants that have gone to the online-only menu. It's usually an indicator that there are other terrible cuts in service and quality going on as well.

I leave because I go to a restaurant to enjoy a meal with my family and friends and to connect. Forcing everyone to stare at their phones for the first five minutes is a bad start.

It makes it easier for them to regularly increase pricing without printing new menus. I wonder if any restaurants are doing A/B testing with pricing

I'm not generally evil, so I never would have thought of doing this. Therefore it must be the correct answer.

I’ve thought of this - if there’s no paper menu available, to avoid tracking, I always just search for the restaurant and navigate to the menu from their webpage rather than using a QR code.

> I just leave restaurants that have gone to the online-only menu

I would if I'm by myself but if I'm out with friends I'm not comfortable making everyone leave.

> It's usually an indicator that there are other terrible cuts in service and quality going on as well.

I've seen no such correlation.

Most I see restaurants switching to card only, pay in app. I can seem some benefits from them.

* they don't need cash to make change * they have no money to be robbed * employees can't pocket any money

Most of my friends like going cashless so they see it as a benefit too.

I ask the waiter what’s good, and usually end up going back forth a few times. It’s not as efficient, but it keeps me from reaching for my phone, which is covered in germs.

And in case of paper menu? It is also covered in germs. Do you read it or refuse and ask a waiter?

I’m banking on the assumption that a paper menu has fewer germs than my cell phone. Life has risks.

Tell them you can't use your phone for whatever reason, and then ask them to just tell you what they have. I think enough people must have done this already because I've seen paper menus return in many places.

(This fall under the general pattern of "make it their pain")

There's a restaurant my parents take me to when I come to visit that requires you to scan a QR code to get to a website and then order and pay for your food on your phone. You are prompted to provide a tip up front before anybody has even done anything. Then when the food's ready your phone alerts you, and you have to get up and grab the food from a shelf outside the kitchen. So if you do tip, you end up tipping... the management, I suppose.

It's just about the most cynical dining experience I've ever had the misfortune of enduring.

I've seen this trend regressing where I live, most restaurants I go to have done away with the QR codes (unless it's a brewery/distillery kind of establishment).