Went to a restaurant this evening, that my wife doesn't even like. I was surprised that she suggested it. We arrive and are informed, that they have no menus, we must use a code reader. Ok, no big deal. Instead of perusing the menu and telling the waitress our choices, we find we have to make our selections on our cellphones. The kicker was that after making our selections, we were to input our credit card information. I told the waitress I was not comfortable with entering my credit card information into some system I knew nothing about. I suggested that after eating, she bring us the bill and I would pay using my card. She said they couldn't do it that way. With that, we got up and left. Now the both of us have a reason not to return. I hope that this is not the wave of the future because if so, I'm going to be eating at home a lot more.

Ouch. I’m sorry to hear that. Dining out here in Georgia is 100% normal.

So there's no cash option?

Even here in California it is pretty much back to "normal".

Did they Geiger you at the door and find a high concentration of radiation?

Wow, how things are different based on the local politics. We ate out 3 times last week - including last night. The experience was just like 2 years ago - albeit more expensive. We sat through 2 rodeos last week with 3,500 of our closest friends. Maybe 4 masks in the lot.

By the way, the bulls won - they always win.
Mike.

quote:

Originally posted by Nismo:
So there's no cash option?

Even here in California it is pretty much back to "normal".

The cash option involved them putting a $1 charge on your cc and refunding it back when you paid with cash. So they still want your cc info.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NK402,

Is that recently? Even out here in crazy land, I’m not wearing masks. I got some hamburgers to go a couple of days ago / no masks and the place was full. Even the staff wasn’t wearing masks. And this is crazy central. Surprised that VA is worse.

I would have walked out too.

Other than prices a little higher, service a lot sloppier, and most places now adding a credit card surcharge things are about normal here.

A surcharge for what?

quote:

Originally posted by NK402:

they have no menus, we must use a code reader . . . Instead of perusing the menu and telling the waitress our choices, we find we have to make our selections on our cellphones. The kicker was that after making our selections, we were to input our credit card information.

I have to wonder what would happen if a customer said "I don't have a cell phone."

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
I have to wonder what would happen if a customer said "I don't have a cell phone."

Being on the round most of the time, I eat out for every meal, or get something and take it to the hotel room. A lot of places, not just domestically, are doing the same thing.

I don't pay with my cell, not do I use the little screwing rorschach code blot things. Places will provide a disposable paper menu in most all cases, I pay when I'm done eating, and don't offer a phone.

A number of places don't handle cash now, and won't take coins.

I used to see surcharges at places for "Extra COVID cleaning" or some bullshit like that...

Always at the last minute when the bill came, and I never went back to those places.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
A surcharge for what?

Wow, that is just crazy. I didn't realize Virginia was like that.

Eating out is pretty normal around here, has been for well over a year. A few people wear masks but most do not nor do the servers. One thing I have noticed is the menus are much smaller now that they used to be. I suspect that is due to the difficulty of those places finding good help. You can pay pretty much however you want, cash, credit and there are no surcharges...that I know of.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
A surcharge for what?

More and more restaurants and other businesses, including a local gun store, are charging 3-4% for using a credit card. We got an email the other day from a local restaurant stating that they will be doing it.

quote:

More and more restaurants and other businesses, including a local gun store, are charging 3-4% for using a credit card.

When my wife bought her new RAV4, couple years ago, she pulled out her checkbook to pay for it. The financial guy at the Toyota dealer told her that she could use a credit card for up to $5,000.00 of the price. No surcharge from the dealer, and the card she uses is a cash-back card.

My wife and I have shifted from eating out to buying better quality foods and cooking it ourselves. No bullshit, no surcharges, no long waits in line, no overcooked meats, etc.

Some restaurants will be doomed to their own fates.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

More and more restaurants and other businesses, including a local gun store, are charging 3-4% for using a credit card.

When my wife bought her new RAV4, couple years ago, she pulled out her checkbook to pay for it. The financial guy at the Toyota dealer told her that she could use a credit card for up to $5,000.00 of the price. No surcharge from the dealer, and the card she uses is a cash-back card.

I did that when I bought my new Ford Bronco Sport a few months ago. They let me do a little over $5K. It was great.

But getting back to the OP, none of that is happening here. As others have said, it's back to pretty much business as usual.

Dining out is a pretty normal experience here. With the exception of lack of staff help. You always have to check what the kitchen hours are and places are closing on certain days like Mondays and Tuesdays but then when they can hire someone they open back up again.

And wait times getting your meal can take a bit longer again due to lack of staff. The wife and I go out quite often to eat as it's just the two of us. We also have friends who own bar/restaurants so we do everything we can to help support these people. We are very patient while waiting to get served or for the meal to come and we tip very well. We actually had a server follow us out to the parking lot to thank us personally for being patient and generous tip. She told us many are not patient and tip poorly or not at all because they had to wait longer than what they felt was reasonable.

These places had the heavy foot of the state on their throats by shutting them down for a year and now the Feds want to pay people to sit at home on their ass while these places are begging for help to keep their businesses running efficiently. So yeah if I have to sit for ten minutes before a server gets my glass of water to me or I have to wait twenty minutes to get my meal I get it. These businesses deserve our our cooperation and these servers deserve our gratitude.

Wait times at restaurants have definitely gotten longer here due to short staff.

Fast food has gotten strange too. Drive thru lines will be 50 cars deep and no one will go inside. I went to raising canes on Friday for something quick to eat and the drive thru line went through the parking lot up and down every aisle, into other businesses parking lots in the strip mall… had to have been 40-50 cars in the drive thru… I parked, went inside, was the only person in there grabbed my chicken and left in probably 3 minutes.

Wow! I'm in considerably more leftist NoVa and I've not seen any of this nonsense, but we rarely go out to eat other than special occasions.

Pretty normal in Ohio with the exception that many fast food dining rooms aren't open yet. They can't get help.