Restaurants are printing QR menus that die weeks later. Here is why it happens, how to check yours, and how to make sure it never happens again.
It happens more often than you would think. A restaurant prints QR codes on every table card and menu, everything works for a few weeks, and then customers start saying the code does not open. Every printed item in the building is suddenly useless.
One owner had reprinted their entire set two weeks before it happened.
The cause: static versus dynamic codes
There are two kinds of QR code, and the difference matters enormously.
Static codes contain the destination inside the code itself. They never expire. But you cannot change where they point - if your menu moves, you reprint everything.
Dynamic codes point to a redirect owned by whoever generated them. You can change the destination any time, which is why most menu tools use them. The catch: if that service stops working, or your free trial ends, the redirect dies and so does every printed code.
Why free generators fail
Many free QR tools offer dynamic codes on a 14-day trial. When the trial ends and you do not upgrade, the redirect is switched off. There is often no warning and no email - the codes simply stop resolving. The tool did nothing wrong; that was always the deal. It is just that nobody reads the terms before printing 40 table cards.
How to check yours right now
- Scan one of your codes with your phone.
- Look at the URL that appears before the page loads.
- If it shows your own domain, it is pointing at something you control. Good.
- If it shows a third-party shortener or QR service domain, your codes depend on that company continuing to run the redirect, and on you continuing to pay them.
How to make sure it never happens again
The safest arrangement is a code that points at a page on your own domain. You control the domain, so you control the destination - and you can change the menu behind it as often as you like without reprinting anything.
That is how Orderly does it. Your QR codes point to your own restaurant website, and your menu sits behind that address. Change a price, add a special, take an item off - the codes on your tables keep working, because they were never pointing anywhere else.
Before you print anything
- Confirm whether your codes are static or dynamic
- If dynamic, find out who controls the redirect and what happens if you stop paying
- Prefer codes pointing at a domain you own
- Test one printed code from a customer's phone, not just your own
- Keep the source file so you can reprint without regenerating
Related reading
QR codes that keep working
With Orderly your QR codes point at your own domain, so they keep working for as long as you do - and you can change the menu behind them any time. See how QR ordering works or book a demo.
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