The End of physical menus?

[Pete]

Trust me, I am very careful about restroom door handles.

[Ward]

I enjoyed lunch at Uncle Julio's today. The waitress brought out paper menus to us instead of the traditional menus. That was fine.

The other thing interesting was when she brought the check out, it was actually some sort of electronic gizmo in a nice folding case. We were instructed to take our time, insert our credit card in the gizmo and pay out bill. That's also how we added the tip. Signed our name with finger on the gizmo screen.

The awesome thing was our credit card never left our possession. I thought that was super, I've always wondered what could happen when someone takes your card with them to another part of the building to swipe it and create the slip you sign. I know "skimmers" are used in places to scan your card when it's out of your physical possession.

My card was recently hacked, within 10 minutes it was used 5 times in Europe, some sort of European based e-commerce. 3 were declined, 2 were approved. It was a real pain in the ass to deal with the credit card company, blah blah blah and etc etc etc. Just an ordeal to mess with, but it had to be done. Screw these thieving bastards!

So yeah, now I'm a big fan of a disposable menu and the electronic gizmo, whatever it's actually called, my credit card never leaves my hand.

And oh, by the way, the waitress told us we could keep the paper menu if we wished. I kept mine for perusing over later to see what I might want to order as takeout.
.

[catch22]

if this is the future then, Restaurants will need to seriously invest in their mobile websites. I often find mobile websites incredibly half-assed, dysfunctional, and painful to navigate. A few weeks ago I was in a restaurant and used the QR code and found their menu to be pretty small, but it was my first time in the establishment so I didn't think about it too much. Not seeing anything that sounded good, I settled on fish and chips. Usually my last choice as I am not really a seafood guy, even fried. While waiting for my food, the table next to me had several items which I didn't see at all on the menu. I opened their mobile site again to find that the other side of the menu required literally 3 fingers to force the iPhone to scroll over to see it. Two fingers to "pinch" the menu and the other to hold it in frame. I find this experience far too often with mobile websites of all kinds. I prefer a physical copy of the menu. Usually my browser on my phone is on something I am reading or doing, and flipping back and forth between a mobile menu and what I am reading or typing sucks.

[TheTravellers]

Trust me, I am very careful about restroom door handles.

So am I, but every single other door handle those people touch before the nastiness "wears off" is still in play.....

[TheTravellers]

if this is the future then, Restaurants will need to seriously invest in their mobile websites. I often find mobile websites incredibly half-assed, dysfunctional, and painful to navigate. A few weeks ago I was in a restaurant and used the QR code and found their menu to be pretty small, but it was my first time in the establishment so I didn't think about it too much. Not seeing anything that sounded good, I settled on fish and chips. Usually my last choice as I am not really a seafood guy, even fried. While waiting for my food, the table next to me had several items which I didn't see at all on the menu. I opened their mobile site again to find that the other side of the menu required literally 3 fingers to force the iPhone to scroll over to see it. Two fingers to "pinch" the menu and the other to hold it in frame. I find this experience far too often with mobile websites of all kinds. I prefer a physical copy of the menu. Usually my browser on my phone is on something I am reading or doing, and flipping back and forth between a mobile menu and what I am reading or typing sucks.

It's not just mobile websites, lots of restaurants don't even have normal websites, just Facebook pages, if even that. And some of the ones that do have websites/FB pages don't have menus or up-to-date ones.

[Bill Robertson]

So am I, but every single other door handle those people touch before the nastiness "wears off" is still in play.....

I will probably always carry latex gloves in the car and use one to get gas from now on. My hip surgeon gives a long speech about never getting an infection and I got the speech twice in three weeks. I'm not going though an infection because that procedure is way worse than replacements. And while I've been very careful since my replacement surgeries this has convinced me to be one of those anal people that others look at funny.

[Bill Robertson]

if this is the future then, Restaurants will need to seriously invest in their mobile websites. I often find mobile websites incredibly half-assed, dysfunctional, and painful to navigate. A few weeks ago I was in a restaurant and used the QR code and found their menu to be pretty small, but it was my first time in the establishment so I didn't think about it too much. Not seeing anything that sounded good, I settled on fish and chips. Usually my last choice as I am not really a seafood guy, even fried. While waiting for my food, the table next to me had several items which I didn't see at all on the menu. I opened their mobile site again to find that the other side of the menu required literally 3 fingers to force the iPhone to scroll over to see it. Two fingers to "pinch" the menu and the other to hold it in frame. I find this experience far too often with mobile websites of all kinds. I prefer a physical copy of the menu. Usually my browser on my phone is on something I am reading or doing, and flipping back and forth between a mobile menu and what I am reading or typing sucks.

True. There are lots of restaurants. Even major chains that have plenty of resources that have terrible web sites.

[ctchandler]

Just one of those things we'll have to get used to.

If you think about handling a menu, it's pretty disgusting no matter how they clean them.

Pete,
The Hal Smith restaurants (at least the ones I have been to) have laminated menus and at Upper Crust they wash them in a dishwasher after each use. If you can drink their drinks, their menus shouldn't be a problem. I don't have a smart phone (by choice) and my eye sight would make it worthless anyway, so I need a menu. I'm a retired IT professional and am a computer guy for almost everything I do but I like a powerful desktop with a huge screen. A smartphone just doesn't work for me.
C. T.

[Bunty]

Trust me, I am very careful about restroom door handles.

I'm glad at Mexico Joe's, Stillwater, that their restroom door can be easily opened with my foot when exiting it. I use it every time.

[Bunty]

I can see using a smartphone, but would rather see a big, colorful, laminated restaurant menu that looks clean and not over used.

[Edmond Hausfrau]

I can see using a smartphone, but would rather see a big, colorful, laminated restaurant menu that looks clean and not over used.

Good luck finding that. Hosts/hostesses generally in charge of keeping menus clean, and as a former hostesses I did a piss poor job and I don't think I was alone.
Personally I do like being able to research a restaurant menu in advance so the online menus help. I'm guessing paper option may hang on due to to-go orders, people without phones with cameras, etc.

[Edmond Hausfrau]

I enjoyed lunch at Uncle Julio's today. The waitress brought out paper menus to us instead of the traditional menus. That was fine.

The other thing interesting was when she brought the check out, it was actually some sort of electronic gizmo in a nice folding case. We were instructed to take our time, insert our credit card in the gizmo and pay out bill. That's also how we added the tip. Signed our name with finger on the gizmo screen.

The awesome thing was our credit card never left our possession. I thought that was super, I've always wondered what could happen when someone takes your card with them to another part of the building to swipe it and create the slip you sign. I know "skimmers" are used in places to scan your card when it's out of your physical possession.

My card was recently hacked, within 10 minutes it was used 5 times in Europe, some sort of European based e-commerce. 3 were declined, 2 were approved. It was a real pain in the ass to deal with the credit card company, blah blah blah and etc etc etc. Just an ordeal to mess with, but it had to be done. Screw these thieving bastards!

So yeah, now I'm a big fan of a disposable menu and the electronic gizmo, whatever it's actually called, my credit card never leaves my hand.

And oh, by the way, the waitress told us we could keep the paper menu if we wished. I kept mine for perusing over later to see what I might want to order as takeout.
.

It's ironic that your hacked card was used to charge in Europe, because the mobile gizmo you liked has been de rigueur in Europe for at least 15 years. They had chip cards long before us.
I wish everyplace in the US used those.

[Thomas Vu]

It's ironic that your hacked card was used to charge in Europe, because the mobile gizmo you liked has been de rigueur in Europe for at least 15 years. They had chip cards long before us.
I wish everyplace in the US used those.

I was going to say this! During my travels in europe, they all had mobile POS machines with chip/nfc

[rte66man]

Brent's Cajun Cafe in Edmond uses the QR codes; however there was no way to magnify the page on my phone to make it legible. Had my brother try it on his Android. Same result. Had to ask for paper menus. I really don't want to have to use my phone for everything (I have bad arthritis and a fused thumb) but the world in general seems to be headed in that direction.