This is an opinion piece. The views are the author’s own.
I sat down at a perfectly nice restaurant the other night, and the server pointed at a little square sticker on the table. “Menu’s on there,” she said, and left. I didn’t want a menu on there. I wanted a menu.
So began the ritual. Unlock the phone. Open the camera. Hold it at the right angle under dim lighting. Wait for a web page to load on one bar of signal. Close the pop-up asking me to join a loyalty program. Pinch and zoom through a PDF built for a much larger screen. By the time I found the soup, I’d forgotten I wanted soup.
A pandemic fix that overstayed
I understand how we got here. QR menus made sense when everyone was trying to avoid touching shared surfaces. They’re cheap to update, and they don’t get sticky. I’m not asking anyone to pretend they don’t have advantages for the restaurant.
But notice who pays for those advantages. The diner provides the screen, the battery, the data plan and the patience. Everyone at the table ends up staring at their own phone, which is the opposite of what most people go out to dinner for. And the one person whose phone died, or who doesn’t carry a smartphone at all, gets left reading over a shoulder.
Paper does things screens don’t
A good paper menu is a small piece of design. You can see the whole thing at once. You can point to a dish and ask the person next to you what they think. You can hand it to your mother, who isn’t going to download anything. It never needs charging, and it never asks for your email address.
It also says something about the place. A menu someone bothered to print, even on plain cardstock, feels like an invitation. A sticker feels like a terms-of-service agreement.
What I’m actually asking for
I’m not asking restaurants to ban QR codes. Keep them for people who prefer them, or for checking allergens and daily specials. Just keep a stack of paper menus by the host stand and offer one to anyone who asks, without a sigh.
It’s a small thing. But dinner out is supposed to be the one hour of the day when I don’t have to stare at my phone. Let me have it.