from the but-i-don't-own-a-smart-phone dept.
Australia's news.com.au reports:
During the Covid pandemic, restaurants introduced QR Code menu ordering in an attempt to minimize contact between staff and patrons. Australian restaurants have continued this trend while taking it to new levels of absurdity, sparking a recent flurry of criticism on social media.
"I'm so f***ing tired of 'tech' being used to solve an 'issue' but only making everything worse and more inconvenient for everybody," one Aussie wrote. Followed by a deluge of replies and comments.
His comment was in response to going to a restaurant and having only a QR code to order from - literally a menu at the table with only the QR code on it. The app required to order from it "proceeded to charge a 6.5% venue surcharge, a 2% payment processing fee, and then had the audacity to ask for a tip (10%, 15%, 25%) as the cherry on top.
Hundreds of others enthusiastically agreed and many added they also didn't like being asked to enter their personal details. "You're waiting your own table and paying an extra fee for the privilege. It's f***ed," one person responded. "It's also a big stinking FU to anyone old or not tech savvy. All just to hoover up your data," another added.
Some, however, shared they preferred using QR codes to order their food - they removed the need to move to order more and limited engagement with staff. "I actually like the QR ordering because I don't like people, but the surcharges and tipping can f*** off," one said. "I love the QR codes - don't need to leave the table to order another beer," someone else wrote...
Jonathan Holmes-Ross, owner of board game restaurant, The Lost Dice in Adelaide told news.com.au that the use of QR code ordering had let his eatery "reduce costs by around 25%... We no longer have to take orders, work out bills and manually take payments," he said. "This gives our wait staff more time to look after our customers, and the kitchen has excellent order information as the accuracy of the orders is great. We now have very few mistakes saving us time and waste. We can also mark items that have run out instantly on the app by using stock levels, again avoiding the disappointment of (the) customer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @12:12PM (37 children)
> the use of QR code ordering had let his eatery "reduce costs by around 25%...
But did he lower prices to pass along this new found "efficiency"?
I like the routine of asking the waiter a question about something on the menu and then either: getting an answer (knowledgeable waiter) or, waiting a little more for the waiter to wander back into the kitchen for the answer.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @12:36PM
The QR efficiency gains only partly make up for the waiters being required to help customers take group photos... 😉
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:20PM (34 children)
I don't think so. Looking at the website for the restaurant. $25 (probably aussie dollars) for a burger. I don't think they have passed on any savings to you the customer. Reduced cost, sounds like code for we have let go of some staff. We need less waiters now that the customers are ordering or are in contact directly with the staff in the kitchen. All they need now is at best or worst someone to show you your table and someone to bring you the food you ordered. So a large part of the waiters job have just been cut out or reduced -- taking orders and accepting payment.
https://www.thelostdice.com [thelostdice.com]
I have noticed that they have started with QR codes in the restaurants here to but it's not really a menu replacement. I have not used it and they don't force you to. You can still order the normal way. But I guess this news from downunder then is just foreshadowing of what is to come. After all they went from cash => creditcard => app payment => next stop QR code payment. So it would make sense if they also then to eventually go this route. And if you pay by QR then as noted you don't need the staff to take payment anymore or your orders.
Sweet. I'm with them. They can fuck right off with that. Add to that then that you probably are also now a valued member/customer that they harvest some data from on top of that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:48PM (33 children)
Even pre-pandemic one (probably several) of our local chains put terminals on the tables where you can order food, pay the check, etc. A waiter still comes around occasionally, but instead of waiting for the waiter, having your own terminal on the table can accelerate the process by 5 minutes per step or more on a busy night. Plus, if you end up doing all your own order entry and payment, 1/2 tip seems pretty reasonable to me for seating, food delivery, and cleaning.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:58PM (22 children)
They have not gone that far here as of yet. With the exception of fastfood places. But they have not replaced the normal counter service as of yet. Instead they have this "express service" where you can order via terminals at the entrance or from a mobile phone app that you download. That way you don't have to stand in line at the counter. Yet you have to go to the counter to pick up your meal. McD etc doesn't have table service here as far as I know, I have not been there for decades. These are not places where you would normally tip I would say. They are not real restaurants in some regard, even tho they have it in their name.
Tipping is for actual food establishments with actual service. If I do the work. Then I would tip myself. Carrying a dish to my table isn't really service in my mind. It's like the least amount of effort one could demand or assume from the establishment.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:04PM (21 children)
When I worked in a breakfast restaurant, the hostess received 10% of all tips (from 3 waitresses) as did the busboy (myself). 10% seems about right, to me - they do impact your experience, more significantly than you might appreciate.
Personally, I prefer the European model: tipping is exceptional and never expected, but that's not how it's done in the U.S.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:10PM (20 children)
> Personally, I prefer the European model: tipping is exceptional and never expected, but that's not how it's done in the U.S.
This is one of the things I found odd when traveling in America. The constant tipping. It's not something we really do here all that often, if ever. As far as I know the story goes something like they don't pay the staff a proper salary but the staff is expected to be compensated for a shitty salary by the tipping. I don't even know if that is true or not. Then I guess I could get away with not doing it in America to cause after all I'm probably never going to go back and eat there again.
At most here, in Europe, I might round the tab as I don't want to get any change -- usually coins and things. They can keep those. Unless the restaurant and service was shitty in which case I absolutely want my coin back cause they don't deserve them. As a matter of principle.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:32PM (18 children)
> I know the story goes something like they don't pay the staff a proper salary but the staff is expected to be compensated for a shitty salary by the tipping.
Shitty is all a matter of perspective. When I worked in restaurants, minimum wage was $3.35 per hour, unless you were "tip compensated" then it was $2.02 per hour. The expectation was that you would be making at least $1.33 per hour in tips, if you didn't then the restaurant was expected to compensate you to get up to minimum. So, yeah, in my view that's a pretty shitty base rate of pay, even for 1985. However, in the better restaurants during peak tourist season, literal bank presidents would quit their bank job for the season to make better money on tips serving dinner shift 4 nights a week. Even my low-season bus-service job in the breakfast restaurant would net me $10-15 per morning in tips, meaning the 2-3 waitresses were receiving $100-150 for a 4 hour breakfast shift, and keeping about $20 per hour in tips after sharing with me and the hostess.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by crafoo on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:41PM
cocktail waitresses made absolutely insane tips when I was working at a fairly nice restaurant for the area. They worked 3-5 hours a night or so, never handled food or dishes. Hundreds of dollars for ~3 hours of work taking orders and moving trays of drinks from bar to dining area. better money than the local strip clubs
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:40PM (16 children)
We should always remember that for every waiter who makes a killing, there are hundreds of others who are simply exploited, and just barely getting by. A waiter at a really exclusive establishment might make six figures in a year. But there are far more who have to decide whether to buy the kids some badly needed clothing, or pay the rent, or buy their medicines, or fix the raggedy old vehicle they rely on to get to work.
Tipping makes no sense for the economy, overall.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:16PM (6 children)
>Tipping makes no sense for the economy, overall.
Absolutely agree. The only work-for-tips jobs I ever had were that breakfast restaurant one summer (and the tips weren't bad there), and part time grocery stock which would bag and carry out when it was busy (which it was a lot) and tipping was forbidden by store policy (which the 96% of customers absolutely ignored.) The no-tipping policy there was really used as an excuse for firing. Want to let someone go for cause? Put them on carry out service (which every employee all the way up to store general manager would do from time to time) and then "witness them taking tips." Even though I only did carry-out about 30% of the time, those tips usually equaled 50-75% of my overall hourly pay for the week ($6/hr).
I knew plenty of people who worked lower tipping restaurants where their overall hourly rate literally barely made minimum wage on all but the busiest nights.
Then there was my Grandmother the hairdresser, who got well over 30% of her income "under the table" as tips. Provide old women cheap haircuts and styling jobs and they'll tip generously...
One of the major problems with tipping is just that, it violates the universal answer for progress: Transparency. Tips never get accurately reported, they're a major part of the economy and there's no accurate data on them.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday November 09 2023, @05:53AM (5 children)
Then what's your bank account number? Thieves need your transparency in order to "progress".
I consider tips personal information, just like bank account numbers, that "progress" doesn't need to know.
I suppose this is one of the more interesting differences between a laissez-faire approach to control and a typical do-gooder/authoritarian approach. If you aren't trying to force progress, then you don't need that transparency in private transactions that would otherwise be none of your business.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2023, @01:50PM (4 children)
>I consider tips personal information,
Such was your upbringing. I hope you also consider pavement of the roads you drive on your own personal responsibility, emergency medical services something to be provided by friends and family, etc.
>a laissez-faire approach to control and a typical do-gooder/authoritarian approach.
If the world weren't populated by a vast majority of lazy fairies, laissez-faire might work - instead laissez-faire is the quickest route to tragedy of the commons. And without commons you have no commerce. You like commerce? Combined with the fact that John Galt is flawed fiction, commerce implies taxes and services to provide the infrastructure to make commerce work.
>you don't need that transparency in private transactions that would otherwise be none of your business.
As long as we say that taxes come from income, tips are income. That's the law everywhere that taxes income, as far as I know. You like people being allowed to violate the law? What's a little borrowing of your personal property when you're not around to personally guard it, then?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2023, @06:31PM (3 children)
"Upbringing"? It's nonsense to compare a private transaction between two parties to a public road or emergency services. The first involves only the said two parties. The latter involves thousands or more.
Commerce doesn't require a lot of government level taxes and services - private parties have huge incentives and resources to make that work - hence, why laissez-faire works for that.
Ah, so you're on the authoritarian side that obsesses over taxes? Well, when you similarly develop an obsession over what those taxes are spent on, then let me know and we can have grown up discussions about it. But when the only reason you care about "transparency" is a money-grubbing exercise to get more taxes, then I can't be bothered to care that such transactions aren't as transparent as you like. Instead, I see a need for greater lack of transparency.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 10 2023, @07:26PM (2 children)
private parties have huge incentives and resources to make that work
Yeah, let's start with the example of privately built and maintained roads and ports. They did such a bang up job supporting commerce with private railroads too, that coined the term "you have been railroaded."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2023, @07:43PM (1 child)
"Railroad" in your sense above was due to the effectiveness and unstoppable nature of railroads and their development in the 19th century rather than some hypothetical sense of incompetence. Not seeing a point to this paragraph at all.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 10 2023, @11:18PM
Read about the long haul / short haul charges farmers faced in the 1800s. Railroaded in the sense I refer to means: locked in, no choice, stuck paying whatever they ask, which is basically: whatever you've got.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:20PM (8 children)
It's amusing how people can be so willfully ignorant as to why we tip. We tip to reward good performance. Waiters who do a good job earn more and better tips than those who simply do the bare minimum to get by. People who are incapable of what the job requires can easily find some other job that will pay the bills. After all, we are told the unemployment rate here in the US is less than 4%. If you can't manage that, the government will hand you an EBT card to cover your basic needs, refilled each month at taxpayer expense. Hell, you don't even have to be here legally! So please, don't even try to pretend people are starving to death because of tips.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 09 2023, @07:36PM (7 children)
You err. The world conducts business without tipping. Tipping may not be *exclusive to* the US, but tipping as we know it, is unique to the US. Exceptional service *may be* rewarded, any time, and any where. But, we *expect* that the customer routinely tips the service staff.
At the heart of tipping, was the original minimum wage laws and controversy surrounding them. Congress was poised to pass a minimum wage law, but wealthy restaurateurs, ranchers, and other food service industries lobbied against any minimum wage law. As always, compromises were reached - all Americans were entitled to a minimum wage EXCEPT people who produced, processed, or served food.
Prior to the minimum wage laws, tipping happened. Tipping dated back to Europe's royalty, who rewarded their serfs for exceptional performance. Some goofy but wealthy Americans observed Euro royalty tipping commoners, and thought that was really cool - it helped to establish the tipper's superiority over the tippee.
Apply that to the US, and initially it was used to help put those dark-skinned people in their place during reconstruction. Then, those goofy wealthy Americans started tipping other people - you know, those poor unfortunate immigrants from eastern Europe, maybe some Asians, etc.
Fast forward to the first minimum wage laws (during the Great Depression). Now, all those wait staff and food handlers were demoted to the same status as Blacks and immigrants. "Boy, you ain't worth a decent living wage, but, you done good today, here's a few pennies, buy yourself something nice."
Tipping has always been an insult of sorts, in that it strongly establishes the superiority of the tipper over the tippee.
I won't accuse you of being "willfully ignorant", but I will state quite bluntly that it is you who is ignorant in this case.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/16/fact-check-tipping-kept-wages-low-formerly-enslaved-black-workers/3896620001/ [usatoday.com]
https://www.7shifts.com/blog/history-of-tipping-restaurants/ [7shifts.com]
And, I'll repeat my claim from earlier: The economy would be better off if tipping ended, and instead, waiters, farmworkers, and food processing people were simply entitled to the same minimum wage protections that almost everyone else is entitled to. No waitress should have to go to work for $1.00 an hour, hoping that if she flashes enough skin, she might get enough tips to buy groceries. The people who generally expect tips in this country are being exploited. It's really that simple.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Friday November 10 2023, @06:33PM (6 children)
It also conducts business with tipping.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 10 2023, @06:54PM (5 children)
Need I remind you that the United States is not the world? And, the world ain't flat neither.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2023, @07:46PM (4 children)
Hasn't worked out that way in any tipping situation I've observed. Tipping has always been a way to reward great service.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 10 2023, @09:48PM (3 children)
You're still missing the point. The WORLD works without tipping, and you get great service anyway. The food industry exploits it's workers, and it exploits you and I, by paying it's workers half or less of minimum wage, then expecting us to make up the difference. Why shouldn't a waitress be paid as well as a welder, or an auto mechanic? The restaurant should be paying her, not you and I.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2023, @10:10PM
Because they suck? Tipping is a strong feedback for both the waiter and the employer as to how well the employee is doing.
Also, you forgot the arms race thing - such as getting better service than French customers!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday November 11 2023, @10:53PM (1 child)
To make it even weirder -- tipping isnt even consistent among the food or service industry staff. Have you ever tipped the fastfood cashier? They take your order, bring you food and take care of the money transaction -- like a waitress. Yet no tipping.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 12 2023, @12:59AM
Good point. Also, there's the hotel/motel sector. Do you leave a tip for the maid, or not? Earlier in my life, I never thought of the maid. Never crossed my mind to tip whoever cleaned my room up. Tip? Why, aren't they paid a decent wage? In most cases, definitely not. Like restaurants, if they work in a really nice motel, they get a pretty decent wage, but 80% work for peanuts.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:06PM
Interestingly, from talking to people on r/TalesFromYourServer [reddit.com], many of them say they *wouldn't* want to be switched to normal minimum wage and lose their tips, because if you're a halfway-decent server (at a decent restaurant where they don't screw you over (too much)), you can make a lot more money off the tips.
May also vary by gender; it seems like the vast majority of people on the sub are women.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:24PM (9 children)
I just wonder how having to use an app worked out in the big Optus internet outage yesterday in Oz?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67340901 [bbc.com]
I have really been expecting something like this to hit here in the U.S. of A. Especially with the proliferation of Monopolistic Service providers tied into large cloud services.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:22PM (7 children)
I swear, cloud (with no reason) developers really need to start having viable local mode options on their apps. It should be a standard thing, every interface that can be accomplished locally, should be accomplished locally first - then cloud-backed if the cloud is available.
My damned garage door came with a cellphone app, which is convenient as hell - pull out your phone to open the door, when the cloud isn't on break. The door still has all the normal functionality with RF remotes, buttons on the wall, but the phone app is definitely the one I use most frequently, and I NEVER do anything with that app that requires cloud connectivity, but it is 100% cloud dependent. I put this right up there with "right to repair": "right to local connection instead of cloud circuits."
Then let's talk about the dozen or so light-switch relays in the house that loop through cloud servers in China, because they are $4.99 each on Amazon and they work better and last longer than the $20+ US made alternatives I have tried over the years. I don't trust them with anything important, but they're there, inside my firewall, taking Google Home voice commands that loop around the world two or three times before the switch switches on or off (which usually happens in less than two seconds...)
So, yeah, QR code on the table _should_ reference an address that resolves on the broad internet when it's available, but also resolves to a local mirror on the restaurant's WiFi local network. I'd be willing to bet there are exactly zero of such setups in use around the world today.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:53PM (6 children)
This is a good idea in principle (and minimizes the chance of a phone network outage affecting orders), but in reality it would probably increase the overall cost to the business due to customers' use of the business' WiFi for other purposes. Yes, you could block that, but most restaurants aren't going to be tech-savvy enough to set all of this up. I guarantee that these QR ordering systems are managed by a third party who takes a nice cut of everything to come in, stick some stickers on the table and install some equipment in the kitchen.
Good point earlier about reduced cost - this really needs to come with reduced prices too, rather than increased ones.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:29PM (3 children)
>reduced cost - this really needs to come with reduced prices too, rather than increased ones.
Greedflation is pretty hard to control.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Thursday November 09 2023, @05:56AM (2 children)
Thus competition. Someone fails to pass on any savings from cost reduction or otherwise degrades the quality of their service, then there are competitors to eat their lunch.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2023, @01:55PM (1 child)
> there are competitors to eat their lunch.
I think you mean, in this context: competitors are there to serve their lunch for them. Problem comes when the competitors are in collusion - like Miami Beach 1995 when lunch prices universally inflated 2x-3x at every place on the beach (meaning: town of 30,000 residents) simultaneously within a space of a month. Yes, there is inflation, yes prices need to go up occasionally, no: the recent spikes in prices are not an inevitable consequence of rising costs of labor and source materials, they're a result of competitors not competing but colluding, just like when my spinach calzone jumped from $1.75 to $3.95 one week after the basic deli sandwich prices were hiked from $1.89 to $3.50 and even the Colombian grocery lunch counter jumped up from $2.75 per plate to $4.25 in the same month.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2023, @06:42PM
Why is that supposed to be collusion? I imagine if I learned the context to that, it'd be something like a huge swing in demand or operating costs of the restaurants (rent or work force availability being obvious starting points for that search) - maybe even a normal seasonal swing like the start of the busy season. You know, the very things you claim weren't the case.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Wednesday November 08 2023, @11:58PM (1 child)
I have two local restaurants for clients. If they needed something like this set up, configured and maintained...clients like that keep me in business.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 09 2023, @01:57AM
But, do the restaurants ask for anything sensible, or just some flashy tech they saw at some other restaurant?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @10:38PM
That is the big hurdle. When CC processing and storage or the payment apps etc go down. All commerce stops. Cause store cashiers can't accept payment over the counter anymore in stores or restaurants if they have gone cashless. It's national news here when the internet banking for one of the large banks happen or when the mobile payment systems /swish/ borks out. Even if just for an evening. Also it always seem to happen at the end of the months when people want to process bills or they get their salaries. It's like the system just doesn't scale very well.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:01PM
FTFHim
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:11PM (2 children)
If you don't like it, don't patronize the QR restaurants.
I see how having the menu only available on a webpage is much more flexible, efficient, sanitary, etc.
Having the app cram a bunch of B.S. on top of the menu prices... that's the same as jacking up the price itself but more annoying to the guests, so hopefully those places that do that get a good chunk of business knocked off for being wankers.
We recently "discovered" a new restaurant we like to patronize. Key components include:
Notice, price at the end of the list... we eat out about twice a month, I'd rather spend triple for the above experience than go to a fast food place that's still going to run $12-16 per person and make you feel like you want to leave ASAP. Crazy high prices would drive us away, but with a little wine, appetizer, main course, dessert, and tip $35-45 per person isn't bad IMO.
They have paper menus presented in clean leather holders, cloth napkins, silverware, earthenware plates, chilled bottle of still water on the table, flower buds in vases on all the tables - and yes, that stuff costs money - thus $45 per person instead of $15 for order at the counter, serve yourself plastic forks in baggies, spoons if you're lucky, greasy tables, food delivered in paper wrappers on greasy plastic trays...
Menus on QR codes seem like a small consideration, in-your-face fees on the apps reminds me of Miami Beach auto-adding 21% gratuities and then asking for more... don't like it? don't go back. I think the mistake Miami Beach made was sucker-punching the tourists with those fees, what the restaurants didn't take into account is that a lot of tourists are actually repeat customers every year.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:10PM (1 child)
It totally depends on the app. You can have a good experience with an app or a terrible experience with an app, same was with a human server. The good thing about the app is that the second time you go to the restaurant you know exactly the experience you are going to get. If the app sucks, don't go back. But I wouldn't skip trying it the first time.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:36PM
That was my feeling in the crowded chain restaurant. Overall, I was glad the terminal was there on the table allowing me to pay and GTFO of there ASAP. Haven't been back in the 8 years since that night, but not because there was a self-service credit card swipe terminal on the table - that was actually one of the better parts of the experience.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:48PM (2 children)
I will not order food on an app. I pay cash as I value my data privacy.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crAckZ on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:44PM
I agree. I was born in 80 & grew up programming & using tech but it feels very invasive anymore. Being in Cybersecurity it feels nice to just not see an app or need mobile data. (My two cents anyway). I don't mind using Samsung pay to use my credit cards but the whole vendor & cashapp thing is getting annoying. Don't have them & don't need them. It just more apps attached to my money & I don't like it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:45PM
If I wanted to order food on an app, I'd stay at home and use a delivery service. Why go to a restaurant if you don't get the restaurant experience?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Touché) by PiMuNu on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:32PM (7 children)
Download our software written by the "experts" in our marketing department to order your food. Insert your credit card details _here_. See ya later!
(Score: 4, Touché) by Opportunist on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:47PM (2 children)
And use a QR code to do it that may or may not have been tampered with by some prankster, without any chance to even know whether you're dealing with the real one or some fake version.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:56PM (1 child)
Hmmm I'm envisioning QR code stickers of the classic rickroll youtube video, only because goatse.cx stopped resolving about 20 years ago....
Almost makes me wish they did the QR code thing here. I live in a red state, LOL, we didn't even do masks. Oddly enough we're not exactly depopulated.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:28PM
QR codes can be used for a lot more.
And we don't even touch on security flaws in QR code readers and software in cellphone.
I have a t-shirt with a QR code that exploits one such flaw. The flaw is like 5 years old by now, as is the shirt, so it shouldn't work anymore, but every now and then, someone trying to take a picture goes "weird, my phone just shut down".
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:43PM (1 child)
Restaurant use of credit cards has a long tradition of "faith acts" - up until recently they could easily have (and some did) duplicate your mag-strip while "running your card." It was dramatically bad at lunch with a table of 10+ separate checks. The cards would all disappear into the back room for 5+ minutes.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @03:00AM
That was my prime concern in "executive" class restaurants. Having some well dressed guy present me with a silver tray or classy little folder in which I was to present a bank card. Then I lose contact with that card for often several minutes while it's in the back room. If it comes back with surprise charges, do I really intend to question it there? It's socially awkward.
A business account, sure, straightening out charges is someone else's problem. But if it's me, I had just as soon avoid having to discuss it..
I just tender the appropriate charges in cash, usually to the nearest dollar, and if they have a surprise charge, make them go through the embarrassment of telling their customer in front of everyone else that something like both a gratuity fee and a tip is appropriate. If I am charged additional fees on top of menu price, I consider that to be the obligatory tip.
I've had it with rich men's restaurants.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @02:48AM (1 child)
I went on a trip to Japan and they have worked this kind of tech in much nicer. Some restaurants have a tablet at each table where you scroll through their menu and place the order and someone brings it out to you when ready. You pay in the usual restaurant way by either paying a person who comes to the table, or you pay at the door.
Some of the raman restaurants have their menus up on what looks like a ticket machine you'd find at a train station. The different things are shown, you press buttons for what you want, and you pay in cash at the machine and receive an order slip. You give your slip to the raman person and they fix your order. The only thing you had to be careful of there was to make sure you brought cash, because cards were not accepted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2023, @10:17AM
Place here called "The Noodle Box" did something similar. You basically built your stir-fry order down to specifying the ingredients on screen, printed out a ticket and got exactly what you ordered. (mild satay sauce, no pork, double prawns, thick noodles, etc.) Mostly did takeaway but they had a few tables and benches. The food was pretty good and reasonably priced.
Haven't been for quite a while as there is a great little family owned chinese/japanese place within walking distance of my house.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:59PM (3 children)
Seeing that they are out of the item I wanted is not going to make me particularly happy so that I jump for joy and do a little dance around the table.
Can't managers stock enough to not run out? Can't managers tell when their stock levels are getting low so managers can odor some more?
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:49PM
>Can't managers stock enough to not run out? Can't managers tell when their stock levels are getting low so managers can odor some more?
Absolutely. However, if you never run out, you always will waste some due to spoilage (and/or sell old food - how aged do you like your fish?) Waste = higher costs. Higher costs = higher prices. Further: if these managers were really super competent top of their game people, do you think that restaurant management is where they're going to spend their whole careers?
Back in the day of owner-managers, things were different. These days, you'll be eating in a restaurant where the owner is dead and the children who inherited it live 1000 miles away - so the managers aren't as "invested" in the business as the original owners were. More often, you'll be in a chain restaurant where the owners own 6, 10, even 50 of them - well, their name is on the wall as "owner" but they're really owned by the bank financiers with the "owners" hoping to out-pace the interest on the notes by extracting maximal profit from you, the customer, while trusting minimum wage managers to run the places for them.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2023, @08:44PM
It is exactly this. The manager sniff out the needs. No further communication needed.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 09 2023, @10:20AM
You won't see that. They are not going to put a strike through it and leave it up like a chalkboard. It will just not appear in the list of options, and you'll probably never notice unless you always order the same thing.
One job constant is that good employers have low turnover, so opportunities to join good employers are relatively rare.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:03PM (1 child)
The best thing about this is you meet other people who can cook well. instead of eating out, visit a friend and cook a meal. exchange visits. maybe they want to show off the garden and cook a meal from it. raise some chickens. help build a brick oven on a patio. maybe they specialize in tex-mex or Polish foods.
I can think of so many more fun ways to live than spending my evening surrounded by fat middle-managers loudly swilling cheap wine. maybe it's because I was a line cook at one point that I find restaurant food sub-par, at best. you know you can't smoke as a line cook. so they chew. and they test for the perfect pan temp with a quick spit.
(Score: 4, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:39PM
>spending my evening surrounded by fat middle-managers loudly swilling cheap wine.
Reminds me of an evening on a "sidewalk cafe" that had tables set back under a concrete roof - so you effectively had 5 sound reflecting surfaces around the 40 seats - basically sitting in an infinity cube [amazon.com] for sound.
One other table had a "CEO" and "President" at it, regaling each other with tales of their management philosophies, dropping annual earnings numbers, dishing on other peoples' wives... My wife and I were by no means silent, surely they realized we could hear them as clearly as they heard us. Maybe they were hoping to impress a passing hottie or two on the sidewalk, before ambling off into their leased luxury sedan. The food there certainly wasn't good enough to make up for the absolute fish-tank of conversational exposure.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:19PM
At a local game board 'restaurant', we just tell them we don't have phones and they tell us some of the things on the menu: we tell them what sounds good and they bring it later.
We then pay at the 'register'.
We don' need no steenkin' QR codes.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 4, Interesting) by corey on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:27PM
So this article is about some random commenters on social media whinging about something? I guess the journalist had a quiet day and wanted to write about something they personally have a beef with them cherry picked some social media to write an article with.
Having said that, I fully agree. As an Aussie, not that it matters but it’s getting more prevalent here, I can’t stand the online ordering. I just go up to the bar and manually order, if possible. I like table service. If I wanted basically take away food ordered on a website, I’d order cheaper takeaway food and sit in a park. These places are usually also expensive and obviously don’t pass on the savings they make to the customer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by boltronics on Thursday November 09 2023, @06:51AM
I live in Melbourne. I rarely end up eating out (mainly because I work from home and live 200m from a major supermarket so can easily cook whatever I want), but even I've experienced the trauma from QR code ordering a bunch of times.
First up, I'm a strict vegan. Item descriptions on a mobile website or app can sometimes be pretty unclear as to whether or not they meet my dietary requirements. Sometimes an item might just have a "V" on it, but is that for "vegan" or "vegetarian"? It varies from store to store, but the apps often don't clarify — but this information *is* clarified on a physical menu in the vast majority of cases.
Sometimes there are items that I want but just need a slight customisation (such as a request to simply change the sauce on an item to tomato) but the phone apps usually won't let me do so. I might eventually chase down a waiter, only for them to tell me that they can do it but "just order it through the app and I'll tell the kitchen". When there is nothing on the receipt that indicates an item was customised, and there is the expectation that what's on the computer is correct, I wouldn't be surprised if this results in more mistakes being made in such scenarios.
On occasions when an app does allow for customisation of an item, customisations are usually charged unfairly. eg. you can rarely perform a swap of an ingredient at no additional charge, even to something cheaper. Instead, you have to remove the item you don't want (which does nothing to change the price), and then *add* the ingredient you want to replace it with (for an additional fee). Essentially, I often end up paying more for less. That's BS.
Another annoyance is that many of these phone apps don't have any option to sort by vegan options. Physical menus here have a dedicated section a lot of the time, but even when they do not, they are usually easy to quickly parse and spot the vegan options (just skimming the list for a "V" or the green leaf symbol or whatever). This often isn't the case with phone apps, where I have to navigate to a burger menu, scroll the list, then go back and pick another category, scroll that list, etc. and 5 minutes later finally have an idea of what the options are.
Perhaps the most frustrating of all is the lack of browser support! I use either Firefox Mobile or DuckDuckGo. In the past I was also using Bromite, but that appears to have ceased development. All of these have at one time or another not worked in a restaurant. I've had to open Chrome and try again, which pisses me off. It's almost certainly just blocking browsers based on the user-agent header.
I've not personally experienced the huge surcharges mentioned in the summary, but I wouldn't be eating twice at a place that did that to me. I've not even touched on the privacy issues, since many have mentioned them.
My thoughts are that having the option to order on a phone can be a nice service to offer — but it should complement existing options, and not completely replace them. eg. Have a physical menu, but also have the option to order by phone as an option (and yes, a lot of restaurants do operate this way). Since it's saving restaurants time and money, that should already cover any surcharge costs.
As an aside, asking for a tip is also going way too far, since it's not something that can ever be expected in Australia. Australia has minimum wage laws that negate the need for it, and I'm pretty sure that tip money goes to the business instead of the waiter 99% of the time it's given here anyway (and probably 99.9% of the time if the tip was given via an app). For the restaurants where there are tip jars for staff, in my experience it can be because the staff are illegal immigrant workers, who are not being paid fairly since they aren't on the government's radar.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!