Bring back physical menus in restaurants

[Globules]

What is it with online menus?

I really miss holding a menu in my hand that I can flick through.

Just had another farce where my data dropped out so I can't access the online menu. Amazingly a menu in a leather bound folio then appeared.

I understand it's cheaper for the company for everything to be online as there's less printing. But boy I miss the book.

Particularly when I need to speak to waiting staff to place my order anyway.

I only experienced this during the later days of Covid. TBH I just told them I couldn’t read it on my phone (too small) - could I please have a proper menu.

No problem.

Never seen it
Must be going to the right places

Whilst some restaurants have electronic menus it’s not even half and all of them have paper options. You don’t have to order online either

Thank goodness it's not just me!

Recently ate at a pub chain that had paper menus but the allergen information was only available by QR code. I couldn’t access it (no signal/no access to their WiFi) and they alleged they didn’t have a hard copy. Fortunately I was mainly interested in the calorie counts.

No physical menus was the final straw in eating out for me.

I don’t tend to carry my phone with me. Nothing says relaxing night out like us all gathered round DH’s phone squinting myopically at the screen whilst yelling “scroll up, no scroll down”. Don’t start me on the availability or lack thereof of wi-fi coverage either.

Went to Zizzi yesterday. Was glad to see online ordering. Worked out the total. Bought the Zizzi shopping card with my Blue Light Discount and then paid. All without having to have an in depth conversation with a waitress about a tomato allergy which wasn’t on their typical allergens …. I know everything in an Italian restaurant has tomato in. The carbonara doesn’t though. So I’ll have that. Job done.

I haven’t been to a restaurant that doesn’t have both options if they do have an online version. Was it a chain?

I've had this abroad, in two different European countries. There were waitstaff but no menus - just QR codes that linked you to their websites. You picked from that and then the waitstaff would come round and take the order.

It works especially well (NOT) when your battery is going flat, or you have no data, or there is no signal in the restaurant, or the restaurant has wifi that isn't working... And then finally you manage to pick from the website, after navigating back and forth to different pages and trying to remember what you wanted, but the staff misunderstand your order and bring the wrong thing - unlikely to happen if there is a physical menu in front of you both.

I live near a town that all of you have heard of at some point. Only places I know where you can order online are Greene King and they also have physical menus. We eat out regularly.

I like it for ordering, especially if the alternative is going to a bar or counter, when you can lose your table (I eat out alone quite often) or the person going up has to remember everything. But I also like a physical menu for browsing, I also like the menus online to be up to date as I often browse at home beforehand. I also like paying via QR code, like in Wagamama, easier than waiting for the staff to bring the machine over and so much easier to split bills.

If you've got a GK, you must have a Wetherspoons too.

They've got it right, like GK. Printed menus on every table, QR code on every table, an app with the menu. You can order via the bar, the qr code or the app.

Everybody is happy.

These were the two I was thinking of too. I like it, just wish the food was better/consistent at GK (spoons is what it is).

I have never been in a restaurant where I have had to use my phone to order.

Are these chain restaurants?
Is it a geographical thing?

I’m in London zone 2 and eat out regularly. I’ve never been somewhere with no physical menu option. Not even the Harvester!

I know, it's strange. Where are all these other posters eating!

Not with us!

We've gone to quite a few restaurants this summer in both the UK and France. Every single one of them had printed menus.

I always ask to keep a menu back for this reason

I hate it.
I had to leave a place once because my phone wouldn’t work and they allegedly had no paper menus. I just walked out.

I've never been somewhere where there's no physical menu, even if you've got the option to order online there's usually a physical menu too.

The restaurant I posted about huffed and puffed with my phone for a bit, used my camera. Then Google lens. It still didn't work.

I asked for a menu again and a waitress went off to get one.

Meanwhile another waitress got her phone out for me to use instead.

I declined her offer and waited for the physical menu to arrive.

They were guarding that physical menu very closely-maybe it's the only one they had.

As I explained to the waitress when I placed my order, the description and photos of one of the cocktails in the physical menu made me order it. I would have just had a beer if I was using the online menu.

What fresh hell is this?? I don't live in the UK and I've never been anywhere which doesn't have an actual menu. If online menus become the norm then I won't be dining out.

common all over the world.

I’ve never experienced a non physical menu. Do you get shown to a table and then given a website link? I can usually manage to read a menu without my glasses but not my phone.