From Contactless Menus to Customer Feedback: How Restaurants Use QR Codes

Imagine walking into a restaurant, placing your phone over a tiny square box on the table, and seconds later, the menu appears right before your eyes. Gorgeous photos, a detailed list of ingredients, and a chef on video whipping up the most popular dish in the kitchen and the bar. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? The impact that the QR code for restaurants has on the restaurant business is that it alters both the owner and the guest experience.

Restaurants can control transmission, cut costs, create a customer experience, and collect data. We are going to shed some light on the eight most important ways that the QR Code will evolve your restaurant in terms of food and bar service impact.

The Rise of Contactless Menus

QR codes were an absolute godsend to restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic. Restaurants could just put a QR code on each table, and suddenly, each guest could have a wee digital version of your menu — and not have to touch something that someone who probably has “Rona” had touched. You’d given your guests a safer dining experience and a pretty easy way to get your menu to the masses.

Two years on, and we’ve seen many of those same restaurants (many of whom became a bit skint thanks to the pandemic) stick with their QR codes. They’re just so gosh-darned and easy to use. They’re a cheaper product to purchase, and they offer less waste than their lamination or paper counterparts.

Enhancing the Customer Experience

QR codes can do more than show your customers a PDF. They can provide an experience. A better experience. An interactive menu that’s chock full of gorgeous pictures and media-rich descriptions instead of dull text. Great! Now, imagine a customer scans a QR code and is greeted with a video featuring the most popular menu items at this restaurant. Mouthwatering steaks. Delicious desserts.

Restaurants can advertise specials and seasonal offerings using this method as well, keeping customers informed of the latest happenings. Adding media to creative descriptions improves the customer experience browsing through the menu and helps them make better (and happier) choices.

Streamlining Ordering and Payments

But some have gone a step further — offering the customer an actual, real-time digital menu that captures an order and payment. Customers scan the QR Code for Restaurant menus, and they are then prompted to build, order, customize if necessary, and pay — all with no orders being sent to a server.

It’s faster, more accurate and in the customer’s hands, not the server's. And it’s great for fast-casual because consumers are the de facto “owners” of their restaurant experience. For the operator, that means faster table turns and happier customers.

Gathering Valuable Customer Feedback

Another method for collecting customer feedback that is not explicitly for taking an order (you know, with paper and a pen). Place a QR code on a receipt, on the table, on a digital menu, and ask the customer to take a quick survey after consuming the product. It should be super convenient for the customer.

But everyone knows getting customer feedback and menu items, or customer service, or an opportunity to fix an issue expediently are the real outcomes. Establish an easy, no-effort process for the “contributor,” and once it is in their best interest and in alignment, they will do it.

Creative Uses for QR Codes in Restaurants

QR codes are not just for menus and feedback forms. The limit does not exist! We have some suggestions for how you can incorporate your QR code tags:

Promotions & Marketing: Encourage diners to visit your social media, loyalty program, promo, or deal. Add a QR code on a table that will lead them to your Instagram or mailing list!

Events: Are you hosting a wine-pairing night? How about some live music? Add a QR code to your flyer or put them on your menus for more info so they can purchase tickets!

Behind-the-scenes Content: Share a video of your kitchen, staff introductions, or your brand story. use qr code printing to display a virtual tour. It also gives a perfect background to a hack-and-slash story of human resistance, and your customers will instantly associate your drinks with rebellion and bravery!

Interactive Drink Menus: Some of our customers use QR codes to share more info or content about their drinks and pairings.

Takeout & Delivery: Add a QR code to your takeout packaging to take your customers to order delivery online or ask for a review.

The Future of Dining with QR Codes

QR codes — we’ve gone from throwback Thursday to QR codes as table stakes for restaurants. However, as technology advances, so do the places and opportunities a brand can have. AR menus and whatnot.

For the guest, a small investment is an easy, cool, shiny thing to do. For the operator, it is a small investment to pretend they’re getting ahead and taking the money they’re not spending to bond and mutually get ahead.