There was much rolling of eyes, for many years, when companies in this sector would bring up QR codes as an exciting part of the communication mix.
At its silly height, there were highway billboard ads that had QR codes on them – 300 feet away from the people seeing them.
But the pandemic, and demands – right or wrong – to go as contactless as possible with information, have resulted in renewed interest in the enhanced bar codes. It helps that smartphone cameras – well mine, at least – auto-read QRs and launch the URL.
The Portuguese queue management software and solutions firm Q-Better has developed and made available for free a new application and platform that lets food service operators provide menus via QR codes.
The idea is simple – park a tent card or label on a table that diners can scan, which launches the menu. QR-Rest allows operators to log in to an account, input a menu, and then create a dedicated QR that links to a URL that contains the menu information.
No app is needed.
The premise here is that COVID-19 transmission risks are reduced when customers don’t have to handle a menu that someone else has touched, and food services operators don’t have to print out stacks on single-use paper menus or have staff wiping down menus sealed in plastic or printed on that material.