In the beginning, there was the QR code.
As often happens, it all started with good intentions, during Covid: avoiding unnecessary contact, ensuring customer safety, and speeding up service. During the pandemic, the QR code became an indispensable ally for restaurateurs, staff, and guests. But what was meant to be a temporary fix has, in many cases, turned into a permanent solution. Today, more than a useful tool, it has become a favourite target of comedians and frustrated customers: “To order, you need your phone. To talk to someone… good luck.”
It’s not just about nostalgia for printed menus. The real issue is that often, behind the decision to rely entirely on a code to scan, lies the abandonment of something more important: human contact. No one comes to the table to describe a dish, recommend a wine, or simply ask if everything’s going well. You order with one click, pay with another, and leave without anyone ever really acknowledging your presence.
The QR code, once a helpful tool, has become a symbol of a deeper shift. And perhaps a slightly more troubling one: a vision of technology not as a way to support people, but as a way to do without them.
The Trap of Efficiency
Behind every QR code, every table-side tablet, every self-ordering kiosk, there’s a promise: to make everything faster, more efficient, more “smart.” Fewer waits, fewer errors, fewer staff to manage. On the surface, it looks like progress. But in practice, it’s often a shortcut that has little to do with true innovation and much more to do with cost-cutting.
The magic word is “optimize” — a term now omnipresent in corporate discourse, but one that too often means just one thing: cutting. Cutting shifts, cutting training, cutting the relational component of service. In the name of productivity, everything that doesn’t offer an immediate, measurable return gets dismantled. But hospitality, by its very nature, isn’t made of numbers alone — it’s made of gestures, attention, and nuance.
And so, instead of integrating technology as a support for people, we end up using it to replace them. And the risk is that efficiency, when viewed so narrowly, becomes a trap: you gain something in speed, yes, but lose much more in quality, ambience, and loyalty. Above all, you lose the very essence of service.
Company Culture or Convenient Excuse?
Once upon a time, people talked about “mission.” Then came the “vision.” Today, the buzzword — repeated obsessively — is “company culture.” Every restaurant, chain, or hospitality startup seems to have one, usually written in a manifesto printed next to the coffee machine, tucked into the footer of the digital menu, or pasted into job listings written by lazy HR departments. You’ll read about respect, inclusivity, team spirit, and customer focus. Beautiful words — that too often remain just that.
Because behind the motivational rhetoric, there’s often a much harsher reality: endless shifts, low pay, staff left alone on the floor to manage entire virtual brigades (QR codes included) and irritable, dissatisfied guests. Phrases like “we’re one big family” become ironic when the only thing shared is a mounting level of stress. “Everyone’s a leader” rings hollow when no one is actually investing in people’s growth. As for “think like an entrepreneur,” let’s just draw a merciful veil over that one.
The truth is that the obsession with brand identity often serves to cover up the lack of a real vision. It’s not culture — it’s marketing, a way to motivate employees to give more… in exchange for less. And when this mindset is paired with the adoption of technologies designed solely to reduce headcount, the outcome is predictable: a fragile, impersonal structure where no one feels valued — neither those who serve nor those being served.
The Decline of Service
There was a time when going to a restaurant meant entrusting yourself to someone — someone who welcomed you, guided you, advised you, followed you throughout the evening. Today, more and more often, it means fending for yourself. And this isn’t by accident: in many cases, front-of-house service was the first thing sacrificed in the name of financial sustainability — that of the business owners, not the system as a whole.
Front-of-house staff are no longer trained, they’re just “onboarded.” They’re no longer professionals with clear competencies, but runners carrying plates from point A to point B, often without knowing what they’re even serving. The dining room team, once orchestrated with the same care as the kitchen, has turned into a group of multitasking operators, often left without guidance or any overarching vision. And the customer notices. They notice the lack of soul, that something has broken between the moment they walk in and the moment they pay the bill.
Service, in the sense of human presence, genuine attention, and the ability to “read the room,” has been replaced by processes. Everything works — not always — but mechanically. The result is an experience that feels interchangeable, replicable, and impersonal. The guest won’t remember a name or a face, only that they ordered from their phone. And maybe not even that.
Alone, Connected, Disconnected
There’s another uncomfortable truth we rarely name: many guests no longer seek human interaction because they’ve simply forgotten how to handle it. In a world where everything — from emotions to grocery shopping, conversations to reservations — flows through a screen, even the restaurant experience risks becoming a solitary act disguised as socializing.
Seated at the table, in pairs or groups, people order from their own phones, look at the screen instead of the waiter, and chat even with those sitting across from them — through apps. Technology, instead of encouraging connection, often gets in the way. And when even the restaurant — once the last stronghold of shared experience — adapts to this model, the paradox becomes complete: we’re hyperconnected, but more alone than ever.
In this context, eliminating front-of-house staff is not just an economic decision: it’s a surrender. As if we’ve given up on people being able to talk to each other, and figured we might as well let devices run the show. But accepting this drift, instead of resisting it, means giving up one of the few remaining spaces where being human still makes a difference.
Greed Is Not Good
“Greed is good,” said Gordon Gekko in Wall Street back in 1987. But that line — written to be disturbing, provocative, almost grotesque — has, for many, become a real-world mantra. Greed has been unshackled, normalized, even celebrated. No longer a vice to restrain, but a driver to exploit. And in the restaurant industry, this mindset has led to a long list of short-sighted decisions disguised as efficiency: fewer staff, less training, fewer human interactions. But more margin, more tables, more shifts.
The problem is that what works in an Excel spreadsheet often fails in real life. Corporate greed, when systematized, doesn’t drive progress — it causes harm. It alienates guests, empties dining rooms, and turns restaurants into faceless chains where no one remembers a face, but everyone remembers the feeling of not being seen. And it drains the workers, left underpaid, unsupported, and unrecognized.
The paradox is that while everyone talks about company culture, identity, and experiences, they behave as though every human gesture were just a cost to be cut. Technology, used this way, is not a partner in hospitality — it’s a fig leaf. And those who wield it to justify layoffs, austerity, and precariousness aren’t innovating — they’re impoverishing.
More than Gordon Gekko, the real symbol of this greed might be Gollum, obsessed with a “precious” that ends up destroying him. In the chase for short-term profit, many entrepreneurs are losing the most precious thing of all: the meaning of their craft.
That’s why, now more than ever, talking about hospitality doesn’t just mean discussing AI or QR codes. It means talking about moral choices, responsibility, and what kind of human experience we want to offer — and at what cost.