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What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

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Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#51
post #31
post #13

> Is this what the peak ordering experience looks like? Call me old-fashioned, but to me the peak experience is a paper menu to choose from, and a waiter that patiently takes the order. Far prefer that to everyone at the table fiddling on their phones in some weird-ass website or even god forbid custom app.

Even worse when the weird ass website has links to multiple PDF documents to download. Then you find out all the items you looked at aren't available when the waiter stares blankly at you about your order. Turns out the dinner menu requires horizontal scrolling on the page to find.

For me peak worse is tables where you get dealt with a single iPad, even when visiting with six people. Which you then get to pass along. And then the 'tech experts' take care of ordering for those who don't get computers, like many elderly folks.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#52
post #43
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

Much like how widening the I-405 does not improve Los Angeles's legendary traffic jams, slabnus do not improve the bottleneck. Namely, restaurants who move to slabnus simply get rid of the waiters who would have taken the order. You're left with even fewer waiters serving food and drinks, let alone taking orders. The coup de grace is I don't even get a discount for the degraded service. Note: Slabnu because I'm pecki…

> The coup de grace is I don't even get a discount for the degraded service.

It's like self-service checkouts: the store gets to save on stuff and get their customers do the store's work instead, and we don't even get a discount for that free labor and more time spent in checkout and degraded experience.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#53
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

In most restaurants the kitchen remains the bottleneck. Tech has not fixed that.

Hey now, there'll be a startup that promises to bolt AI-powered robot arms to everything, can only cook licensed "Verified Recipes" and will be bleating "we just need more data bro, 6 months more runway, on my mother's life" until they go spectacularly bust at the end of their "journey" having never cooked a single meal.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#54
post #13

> Is this what the peak ordering experience looks like? Call me old-fashioned, but to me the peak experience is a paper menu to choose from, and a waiter that patiently takes the order. Far prefer that to everyone at the table fiddling on their phones in some weird-ass website or even god forbid custom app.

Many people like being able to see what they are ordering. I've seen people order by pointing to pictures on Yelp instead of using the paper menu. Online menus with pictures of every dish are desired by plenty of customers.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#55
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

inefficiency? It's part of the experience. I'm not in a restaurant or café to drink as fast as possible. I'm there to socialize as well. Waiting a bit is not a bottleneck, but a feature. (If I wanted speed, I'd take the drive-through).

Have to disagree with this. At a group meet-up where everyone arrives at different times and wants their order to come shortly after they do, a digital system is so much better. These type of meetups are quite common as a parent.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#56
post #37
post #13

> Is this what the peak ordering experience looks like? Call me old-fashioned, but to me the peak experience is a paper menu to choose from, and a waiter that patiently takes the order. Far prefer that to everyone at the table fiddling on their phones in some weird-ass website or even god forbid custom app.

I’m not sure if this could be considered “peak”. The ratio of waiting staff to customers is an obvious bottleneck. This inefficiency is simply accepted and not even really thought about, it’s just the way things are. But one thing I can say for this tech is it fixed it and the difference is noticeable.

few comments

- you are ordering food and drinks, speed is not essentials, if you're in a hurry you don't sit down in a diner/restaurant

- you assume that everything on the menu is perfectly clear, but what exactly is that thing with the mysterious name? (for example peri peri fries means nothing to me) you can ask to a person, not to a PDF

- you really want X but you have food allergies or some other dietary restriction, again you can ask that to staff, not to a web site

- most importantly, you're assuming that waiting is generally considered an inefficiency, that should be addressed or fixed and that should be the goal of every place serving food and beverages, while it usually is the moment were people sit and relax and have a little chat, it is called lunch break for a reason, isn't it? It's the generalization of XKCD #303.

p.s. in my experience in places that use QR code menus orders are not served faster, actually the opposite is often true.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#57
post #22
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it really a vulnerability if the entire thing is open by design?

Who says it was? Why would they willingly give out their customers' and customers' customers data to any anonymous person or a bot? More likely a bad oversight

Because they don't care, and their customers don't understand any of this shit?

It feels like the usual case of vendors buying service to better exploit the users, and themselves getting burned and/or exploited by that service too.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#58
post #50

> Armed with my two-week free trial of Cursor IDE, Makes this blog post sound like an advert for whatever this product is. Maybe the next big app for AI is to analyze web pages and scrub this crap out of otherwise decent articles.

I think it was a sarcastic way to stress how low effort the whole endeavour required.

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#59
I know that Indian companies might not have a bug bounty program but you should get paid for finding such a big vulnerability And their CTO should take some blame for this.

On the other hand, I agree with other comments that posting the whole financials of a company does not seem like a good idea

PS: I really like your writing style. Subscribed your newsletter

Re: What's inside the QR code menu at this cafe?

#60
> Next time you're at a restaurant that makes you scan a QR code and enter your mobile number to order, I want you to remember that random strangers on the internet are looking over your shoulder and watching what you're eating.

Isn’t this just sample size one? In other systems this information can be passed securely and not leaked later.

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