The Balance of Paper and Technology

Growing QR codes into dynamically changing menus is the future.

Ristorante Machiavelli in Capitol Hill, Seattle WA

QR Code Land

On the restaurant scene, what’s going on with all the QR codes?

I went out with the family to a small independent Italian resturant in Capitol Hill called Ristorante Machiavelli. Amazing Lasagna by the way. It was over 10 years since my last visit, and even this homey formerly cash-only establishment has QR codes on the table linking to their their menu.

QR Codes are here to stay.. and some people aren’t happy about it:

When you, the customer, take on some of the work previously associated with hospitality, you become in charge of your own menu, your own ordering, even processing your own credit card. Some of the magic is gone when so much is DIY.

Other people are concerned with data privacy.

But overall the QR code direction has a lot of benefits that outweigh the cons, as brought up in this article that states “PDF menus should be a last resort”:

QR codes allow operators to adjust menus in real-time. This means a strained staff no longer needs to waste time communicating to every customer when an item gets 86’d. It means prices can be easily adapted to inflation. Likewise, if a dish isn’t selling well, operators can test out a price drop. And it means every time the pesky supply chain decides not to cooperate, menu items and descriptions can pivot, without having to waste money on extra printing.

The Garden

A little project took up a lot of time last week, and I’m mostly happy with the results. I created an inventory of *most* of the plants in my front yard garden, put a website up with a few illustrations, and have a little plan to practice painting more watercolors over the next couple of months.

a pretty QR code!

It’s pretty simple: put the information into a json file, coded the project with a boilerplate create-react-app and host it for free with Netlify. What took a long time was actually finding out exactly what is growing in my garden in both latin (scientific) and common names. I am still creating the little illustrations to accompany names but it’s a labor of peaceful meditation.

You can see the work in progress at Punk Lady Apple