Are digital menus replacing physical ones? Nostalgia may be hard to get by
A large wooden menu of a popular Delhi restaurant and hangout in the 70’s called ‘The Cellar’ has had a spot by the side of the kitchen window of my home for the last five decades. My mother happily admits to ‘flicking’ it from the venue, as collecting menus of trendy places was a quirk among the college crowd of the time. When I brought this up in a conversation with writer and food critic Marryam H Reshii, she laughed and admitted to flicking many a menu in her day too! In the digital world of today, this is unthinkable. Not for any moral reason whatsoever but the fact that menu cards from far and beyond are available in a few clicks on a smartphone that most of the world owns. Hence, the generation of today prefers trying to risk their burglary skills on unique crockery and glasses, as I’ve gathered.
But the significance of the classic physical menu card in the overall dining experience comes alive when complemented by a well-informed waiter that brings it to the table along with a separate wine list and dessert card. This entire sequence loses its charm in the face of a ‘QR Code’ placed on the table that takes you to a digital menu when scanned through the smartphone. It is also largely unfair to the older generation that may not be that tech savvy and to diners that still prefer the charm of a physical menu. Then why are so many restaurants across the country making the shift? Ensuring ‘Hygiene and safety’ is how restaurateurs justify this practice that owes itself to the Coronavirus.
When the pandemic began in 2020, a lot of medical experts recommended avoiding contact with shareable physical material like newspapers, magazines and menu cards. Scanning a QR Code instead of going through a menu became the norm at eateries worldwide. But even though we have come a long way since then and it has never actually been proven that passing a menu card around a table will result in covid, many restaurants continue to use digital menus as it saves them the cost of printing. They can also change details of items and prices in a few clicks for free as opposed to having to re-print the menu or strikeout and change information with a marker or pen. Since the F&B industry did suffer a huge financial blow in the last few years, an aspect of this is understandable. So is the fact that we are in the digital age and tech is taking over. But using ‘hygiene’ and ‘covid protocol’ as a justification is just a smart play of words- a trait many seasoned hospitality professionals possess.
Randeep Bajaj, who co-owns the Town Hall restaurant in Delhi along with a few other ones, believes a hybrid model is the way forward.
“An establishment must give its customers the choice to order as they feel comfortable no matter how digital an era we may be in. One must keep at least a few copies of a physical menu at all times and not ever let the human element of interaction between the servers and diners fade away. Otherwise, why come to restaurants at all? People can happily order anything and everything at home now,” asserts Randeep.
Food critic Marryam Reshii has seen establishments slowly lose some integral elements over the last four decades that she has been in and out of them. “First it was the carpets that went. Then the lovely curtains.
"And now with menu cards disappearing, restaurants are getting more and more bland!” says Marryam.
She also feels that by forcing customers to go completely digital, restaurants are digging their own graves. “Not giving the option of a physical menu at restaurants translates into telling certain customers that ‘we don’t want you, go elsewhere’. They will go elsewhere. And that is when establishments will realize it is their funeral, not the customers.”
It would be wise for restaurateurs to pay heed to that, as a lot of big spenders across generations still prefer to be in a setting that brings out the aura of the dining-out experience- something ‘QR Codes’ cannot replace.
By Reshil Charles, WION!