Come Back Shack. Can I Have an Old-Fashioned Menu?
Blue Ridge Trip '24 #18
Boone, NC - Wed, 4 Sep 2024. 11pm
Once we got back to Boone this evening, after a satisfying long day out, our first order of business was finding dinner. It's surprising for a college town that Boone doesn't have more local, casual eats; mostly it's chains here. But we did find a well reviewed local burgers place call the Come Back Shack. The food was... college town eats. Which is to say, good but not great food with a fun, younger-oriented vibe. And it was less than half a mile from our hotel, so that was a win, too.
One of the things that comes along with a younger oriented vibe nowadays is no physical menu. There are no menus at the tables, no lighted menu board overhead, and not even a cashier to order from. You scan a QR code with your phone and order through their website, or you use an ordering kiosk at the back of the dining room.
I'm not a Boomer, but I agree with Boomers on this: We hate QR code menus. Just give us a physical menu! I like being able to see the menu all at once instead of having to scroll, scroll, scroll through pages of stuff on my tiny phone screen. Oh, and the fact it's seldom well lit in such restaurants anymore makes it even more of a challenge. Thankfully this restaurant did at least have that ordering kiosk at the back, so we could page through the menu in a reasonable font size. We ordered there. Though we noted that all the Boomer customers were having trouble with it, so if we found ourselves stuck behind one... shit, we'd probably just leave and go somewhere else.
Boone, NC - Wed, 4 Sep 2024. 11pm
Once we got back to Boone this evening, after a satisfying long day out, our first order of business was finding dinner. It's surprising for a college town that Boone doesn't have more local, casual eats; mostly it's chains here. But we did find a well reviewed local burgers place call the Come Back Shack. The food was... college town eats. Which is to say, good but not great food with a fun, younger-oriented vibe. And it was less than half a mile from our hotel, so that was a win, too.
One of the things that comes along with a younger oriented vibe nowadays is no physical menu. There are no menus at the tables, no lighted menu board overhead, and not even a cashier to order from. You scan a QR code with your phone and order through their website, or you use an ordering kiosk at the back of the dining room.
I'm not a Boomer, but I agree with Boomers on this: We hate QR code menus. Just give us a physical menu! I like being able to see the menu all at once instead of having to scroll, scroll, scroll through pages of stuff on my tiny phone screen. Oh, and the fact it's seldom well lit in such restaurants anymore makes it even more of a challenge. Thankfully this restaurant did at least have that ordering kiosk at the back, so we could page through the menu in a reasonable font size. We ordered there. Though we noted that all the Boomer customers were having trouble with it, so if we found ourselves stuck behind one... shit, we'd probably just leave and go somewhere else.