Either it will negatively affect the bottom line and stop, or diners will get used to it and it'll continue.
Or it'll actually boost profits from people having the menu on their phone for dine-out ordering, allow the restaurant to update pricing more easily matching their costs, and of course the savings from not having to print physical menus.
I just play dumb and ask for a physical menu, claiming that my phone broke this morning. Adapt the experiment for the number of people. With 2, the other one might say "and I'm out of battery". 3 could be "mine I forgot at home". And 4+ people are already too many to reasonably expect customers to share a single phone between them all.
It's all just a social experiment which hopefully ends up trickling up and making owners aware how stupid it is to expect everyone to bring a phone in their pockets in order to being able to order food.
Some times it's not even a lie: as part of mentally cleaning up from an intense addiction to social media, I've forced myself into offline mode and purposely leave the phone at home from time to time.
One time my phone was getting terrible reception in the restaurant, and couldn't download the way-too-big menu file. I ask the server for a paper menu, and apparently they'd went all-in on paper-free, so no menu for me. Instead, the server had to present their iPad to me so I could see all the software buttons for the items I could choose from as they scrolled through. Ridiculous. The next time I went they had paper menus.
It's for fun. I just want to have them making the effort to realize that they shouldn't drop physical menus altogether.
Also some times I didn't feel like doing the theatrics, and upon asking for a menu, they'd say "it's there in the QR code, please scan it" and leave me to it, as if they had done a good job. Not on my watch!
As a counterpoint, most people use their phones daily while sitting on the toilet and very rarely sanitize it. You may be diligent in keeping it sanitary but the past 50 people who kept their phones on the table while reading the menu probably didn’t (and the wet rag the bus person wipes the table down with probably doesn’t do much either).
I do not believe that most people use their phones on the toilet at all, much less daily. It would be incredibly stupid to risk dropping your phone in the toilet just so you have something to look at for the <1 min it takes to do your business.
I just dealt with this the other day. One of my favorite restaurants kept the menu "books" but when you opened it up it just had a QR code. Tease... So I went to the counter and asked for a paper menu, which they provided. While my friends are struggling to figure out the online ordering system, I ordered directly through the waiter. All seems to be well and I'm feeling smug. Then my friend comments that they can't figure out why there is another item on their order, an item that just happens to coincide with what I ordered. facepalm So I ask the server to put it on a separate tab, to which they responded "I already did." Ok... So we'll have to figure this out later. After I eat, I walk up to the counter since I don't expect to receive a paper bill from the server as everything seems to be online now. I ask to pay for my meal, and they say they don't have any such item open on the tab. facepalm I walk back to table, and later my friend and I go back to the counter so they can show the staff that my item is on their tab. We can't figure it out with the staff, so we decide I'll just pay my friend for my portion. Except my friend's tab is already closed apparently and my item wasn't on it? Gah... Third time's the charm, I ask the server for my check, which they bring out. It has a QR code to pay online, no chance I'm messing with that. I walk to the counter, present the bill, and the server is able to ring up my tab. Way too much hassle associated with just ordering and paying for food. I suppose next time I know all the dance moves required for things to go smoothly, but I came to eat, not dance. Grrr....
Or it'll actually boost profits from people having the menu on their phone for dine-out ordering, allow the restaurant to update pricing more easily matching their costs, and of course the savings from not having to print physical menus.
Time will tell. I'd bet on the latter.