Menus

A friend from my home town posted a message on Facebook yesterday about the price of an omelette.

Wow! If it was intended to generate a bit of a discussion, it most certainly did. It was an actual picture that she’d taken of the physical menu, complete with the glossy finish that we’re accustomed to seeing. I know the restaurant well.

Since it was raining and I had nothing better to do, I visited the website and checked out the menu online.

That’s more of the price that I’d expect to see for an omelette. It’s still a whack of money when you consider that it’s just a couple of eggs and a bit of cheese, some cooking expertise, and some profit.

Of morbid curiousity, I asked her if the price on the menu that she’d see included all you can drink coffee and she replied that coffee was extra.

Double wow.

Now that it’s the Christmas holidays, we have been out to a few restaurants and I’ll admit that prices have most certainly gone up.

Different restaurants handle things differently. I’ve seen some where they scratch out an existing price and write a new one in. I’ve seen some that use White Out and write over them. White Out? That’s got to date you. I’ve seen some that just print a menu on a fresh piece of paper.

Then, I saw this and I will name the restaurant because it impressed the heck out of me. It’s John Max in Windsor.

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Now, I’ll admit that I didn’t go looking for a menu. If you go to John Max, you have to get the Cajun Dry Rub Chicken Wings. The rest of the menu is filler! Yeah, I guess I’m opinionated when it comes to chicken wings.

One of our party wanted to check the menu though and was waiting for our server to bring him one.

When she came to our table to get our order, he asked for a menu because there was no paper menu on our table at all. Actually, there wasn’t one on any of the tables.

She pointed out that there was, instead of a paper menu, a QR code that you could scan with our phone. Or, if we didn’t have a phone, she had a tablet that you could borrow.

I was really impressed. Quite frankly, it was the first time I’d seen this use for a QR code and it mades so much sense.

On the drive home, I couldn’t help but remark to myself how wise a move this was.

• you didn’t have to deal with a filthy menu handled by many before you
• you could update the prices, if required, on the website and just provide a link via QR code to it. That way, there’s no question that you’re not getting the latest and greatest pricing
• the tables were incredibly neat

I couldn’t see a down side to this approach in this day and age.

Can you?

Why wouldn’t all restaurants do the same thing in this volative market?