The pandemic is over: let the QR code menu end – 05/05/2023 – Cozinha Bruta

On Friday (5) there was a big Friday, with the WHO decreeing the end of the health emergency of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s time to also discuss the end of the pandemic paraphernalia that has taken over bars and restaurants.

In particular, the infamous QR code menus that many places insist on keeping, despite the general complaint of the parish.

The coronavirus plague accelerated and legitimized a series of transformations, which were already underway, in the trousseau. I am referring to napkins, cutlery, spices and other things left available to the customer.

The tendency is to leave everything individually packaged. Hygienic measure and deeply irritating.

Want something crazier than individually packaged toothpicks? For decades, it has been agreed that picking your teeth at the table is extremely rude.

There is simply no point in offering toothpicks. To skewer the fries, there is the fork. For those who insist on performing oral hygiene at the table, carry their own dental floss.

Replacing salt shakers with tiny paper envelopes leaves the table uglier and generates some waste. But at least they are easy to open. The problem is when you change the balls, put sweetener on the steak and salt on the coffee.

As for the ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise sachets, it seems that they were designed with the aim of reducing the consumption of these condiments. Opening the first bag is OK… then the challenge grows as your hand gets hamburger greasy.

To clean greasy hands, napkins. The design geniuses created the napkin duo wrapped in waxed paper. You use a napkin, the restaurant sends three sheets of paper in the trash.

All of this is boring to use and has a negative charm, but it is based on a discourse of offering a sanitary safe environment for restaurant customers.

The QR code menu no longer has that excuse. They emerged at the height of the pandemic panic, when they even put some kind of condom on the elevator call button.

Hardly anyone handles the printed menu while eating. Saliva contamination is negligible, and the most cautious have the ubiquitous alcohol gel –another pandemic innovation– to clean themselves right there.

The mobile menu is hellish.

At a table with several people, there is always someone with a dead phone. The same device circulates from hand to hand, very hygienic.

Old people can’t access the menu. When they succeed, they don’t see a single thing. Navigation is always abysmal and requires the supervision of a sniffing waiter over your shoulder.

Even worse, only when the system requires that the order be placed right there, on the cell phone, and sent digitally to the kitchen. In 100% of the occasions that I used this technology, the order came wrong or did not arrive at all.

On Twitter, the owner of a bar in Rio commented that the QR code menu makes life easier for merchants. They don’t have to reprint the material when they markdown prices or offer a new dish.

Well then: the digital menu is good for those who serve it, not for those who use it. Are we going to end this upset?

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