Saizeriya’s QR Code Ordering System: Simplicity Done Right

As a developer working in the F&B industry—and on a mobile ordering product—I always get a little excited when trying out ordering systems at restaurants. It’s one of the few chances I get to experience competitor products purely from an end-user’s point of view, without dashboards, specs, or meetings getting in the way.

Last week, I went to Saizeriya, a well-known family restaurant chain in Japan, and had the chance to use their QR code ordering system. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be: simple. And I mean that in the best possible way.

A “Typical” QR Code Ordering System

In a fairly standard QR-based ordering system, you usually see some combination of the following features:

• Seating management (配席 – roughly “table assignment” or “seat registration”)
• Menu browsing (list view + detail view)
• Ordering
• Cart
• Order history
• Checkout / payment
• Call staff
• Sometimes CRM-related features (membership, coupons, points, LINE integration, etc.)

From a product perspective, this makes sense. Each feature solves a real problem—in theory.

In practice… things often get messy.

Saizeriya’s QR Code Ordering: How It Works

Scan the QR Code on the Table

You start by scanning a QR code placed directly on the table using your smartphone.

Welcome Screen

A minimal welcome screen. No login, no explanation wall of text. (I should have tried their multi-language feature)

Seating (配席)

A very simple keypad-style UI with large buttons.

Menu (or… not really)

This is where Saizeriya does something interesting: there is no digital menu. Instead, you look at the physical paper menu on the table and input the item number directly.

Ordering

Once you input the menu number and quantity, the item is added.

Cart

Order History

You can quickly review what you’ve ordered so far.

Checkout

After checkout, a barcode is generated. You simply show this barcode at the self-register to pay.

Thoughts

Saizeriya’s QR code ordering experience was refreshingly smooth—from scanning the QR code to checkout. Everything felt intentional and lightweight.

The biggest difference is their decision to skip the digital menu entirely and assume that customers will order while looking at the physical menu book. This may sound counter-intuitive in a world obsessed with “digitizing everything,” but it actually works surprisingly well (at least for me).

There are plenty of people who genuinely prefer flipping through a paper menu rather than scrolling on a small screen. Paper menus are faster to skim, easier to share across the table, and don’t drain your battery or require network requests to load images.

In contrast, many modern QR ordering systems try to do too much. They bundle menus, recommendations, coupons, memberships, LINE integrations, and CRM features into a single flow. The result is often cluttered and confusing. I’ve personally been in situations where I couldn’t find a specific menu item in the UI and had to call a waiter anyway—defeating the whole purpose.

Compared to many feature-heavy ordering systems, Saizeriya’s QR ordering experience felt refreshingly simple.