Food pictures are supposed to represent the food you offer. An AI image isn’t the food the customer will be getting. It’s straight up dishonest, and when you put it in the front window, you’ve lied to your customer before they’ve even walked in the door. Not a good start.
I’ve owned restaurants before, and I’ve always fought with partners and investors about having photos of the food on the walls. It never looks like the actual product, and it only causes customers to do comparisons, and in most cases, the actual product will look worse. You don’t want your customers looking at perfectly good food, and thinking it’s shitty because it doesn’t look like the perfectly photographed product shot on the wall.
If one takes an unaltered photograph of actual food, it also will look disgusting, because what we have in our brain as picture of food is idealized. One can easily try and make a photo of one’d favourite dish before eating, and print it out.
She was frustrated. AJ was disheartened. “I want people to come to our restaurant, but, like, why is this such a big deal that it influences people on such intense level,” Lyndsey Lozano said. “Like, is it really that horrific that you have to act on such a feeling?”
They’ve really catered AI slop to the mindless masses eh? Not even an iota of an idea of why people could possibly hate the usage of AI this intensely. Smh.
It’s kinda interesting tho.
Putting images from google or another restaurant is obviously wrong because it makes a misleading menu, they know it’s wrong because they aren’t trying that, but they also think same act is totally fine if they simply add AI.
We don’t know that’s their reasoning though, maybe they were too lazy to do that
Attacking the people who use AI is punching down. We need to be punching up, at the billion and trillion dollar companies and people stealing from everyone and lying about their services to break down our society and our reality. These restaurant owners are victims of the AI companies just like the rest of us. Even the guy addicted to AI crack is not the villain. The villains are in the whole supply chain of people making sure he gets and stays addicted, and most of them know exactly what they’re doing.
Well said & correct, thank you.
we can do both
edit: fuck the enablers
If you don’t shame people for using AI, then AI usage becomes normalized.
No, we should also take away their userbase.
If you think that will solve the problem you are delusional. Do you even understand the concept of why punching down is not an effective way of solving problems? Do you understand why doing things like kicking out immigrants doesn’t fix the economy? The money, the power, the control is all up above. You understand that right? The immigrants don’t control the economy. The small businesses don’t control the economy. None of us have the power to change this unless we all turn our attention upwards. All of us. At once. Your idea is not helping.
This isn’t like kicking out immigrants. That’s a bad analogy. This is more like mocking Trump voters. I think that people’s bad behaviors should be called out.
If you think that will solve the problem you are delusional.
I mean, is that not what we do to shitty companies? We stop using their product and do our best to reason and/or shame others into doing the same?
I’m not saying that’s the only thing we can do. But boycotts are a pretty popular suggestion.
They’re already not making money as it is. Helping them continue not making money seems very unlikely to stop them. This is not an economic issue, this is a political issue, and those sort of issues will persist despite the existence of any economic disincentive, because they depend on political incentives not economic ones. These are hostile fascists using these technologies against humanity. They don’t care if we boycott them. It will not stop them, or even appreciably slow them. They have already collected all the money they need to continue this project at least far enough that they can keep stealing everything humanity creates that isn’t nailed down and they are clearly not afraid of spending every penny they can beg borrow or steal on this venture possibly indefinitely. Maybe they will eventually run out of things to beg borrow or steal, but I wouldn’t count on it.
You actually think that AI companies don’t care about or need to make money?!? That’s a pretty bold claim. Do you have any evidence for this? How does an AI company survive long-term without making any money?
I mean, I know what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to make other businesses dependent upon their services, and then once that happens, they can jack the prices up and start becoming profitable. I thought this was pretty obvious, but you have some other idea about a bunch of fascists stealing everything humanity creates in order to…do…something? What are they accomplishing here?
Did you reply to the wrong person? None of what you said is relevant.
The fact you think critically about it at all, in and of itself, puts you in the bubble. Most people don’t contemplate, well, much at all.
The AI food on the poster looks absolutely horrifying, especially that “slaw” and “pulled pork”. Why would anyone think people would find that appetizing or draw anyone inside? Even if it didn’t look fake like plastic toy food, people want to see photos of the actual food you are selling, not a bizarre “concept” of the food. Huge mistake but the fact that they still don’t understand why people reacted negatively is not a good sign for their business.
They got some company to do this. AI generated and no one with artistic training to vet it before delivery.
Stellantis did the same thing with AI generated ads for RAM trucks that generated images of Toyota trucks, US flag with 40 stars, which may be accurate in a few years.
Higher-res photo:
AI generated food imagery looks so unappealing, disgusting even
The crust of the bread looks like fsnakeskin
Jeez… like even if the AI slop wasn’t a big invasive problem, I don’t know how anyone thought this was a good idea. Seeing the picture of that pulled pork (or really any of the others) would have made me go “NOPE” if I thought that’s what the food looked like.
That weird texture is on everything
That didn’t look so bad lo-res, but up close it does look pretty freakish!
The breads look like they have lizard skin.
Especially that pulled pork with slaw. I wouldn’t get near that thing if it were real.
Maybe Klingons would like it, though.
That was my thought too. Low res some things looked a bit off, but high res is a mixture of gross and creepy.
As the owner, how would you see that and think that it’d make people come in to eat?
the pulled pork has 6 fingers.
Trypophobia Foccacia
The foccacia and the slaw give me the heebie jeebies!
The italian soda gives me those vibes with the weird ice look.
It’s so interesting that the people who love this shit and embrace it wholeheartedly don’t understand why it’s so upsetting. I mean this example in particular, good god.
I wish we had more discussion on here where we put our frustration aside and actually interrogate what the disconnect is, because I can’t place it for the life of me. Intelligent people fall into this, people who had good taste too. I don’t understand
Looks bad and is soulless
The article says that they have 3 kids under the age of 5. I’m gonna be charitable and say that the stress of parenting may have impaired their judgment.
Not a great time to be opening a restaurant tbh
Lol there’s just a branch of Rosemary on that.
That would be awful
Rosemary is my favorite herb, but if I saw that photo, I might think it looks like a decent sandwich, but I definitely wouldn’t want a woody branch of rosemary as a topping. That would make me NOT order it.
The AI generated image of the ideal customer is a dirty redneck chewing on a stick of Rosemary
It doesn’t even look like rosemary. Rosemary comes off from the branch as a “pointy” leaf (like a wide pine needle). That looks like rosemary with thyme growing out of the tip of each leaf.
Oh GOD.
I haven’t had my appetite ruined that quickly in a very long time
Isn’t that illegal, as in there are rules around food advertisements and the food must be “real” to some extent.
Okay, so what authority is going to come into the shop and close it down, or arrest somebody for it?
Absolutely nobody, that’s who.
In Quebec, they have a law that the French verbage on a sign has to be at least twice the size of anything in English, and they have authorities who walk around with a ruler, and literally measure the lettering on signs, and issuing tickets.
That’s NEVER going to happen in America.
America buries a lettuce contamination to protect private equity. Menus aren’t even on the radar.
Odd shout-out to Taco Bell for stepping up to the role of US FDA/USDA in 2026.
Perhaps the 3 seashells movie was spot on the whole time.
I think that depends if there’s small print saying it’s a rendering or sth
I’m not sure that’s allowed - https://verityrise.com/food-advertising-laws/#Core_Provisions_of_Food_Advertising_Laws
Based on my read, the advertised product must be real and sold in the store and must match the product being sold.
I’m sure some random mom and pop stores are unlikely to get called on it, but it seems AI generated images wouldn’t be allowed (but I’m not a lawyer).
Based on my read, the advertised product must be real and sold in the store and must match the product being sold.
How does McDonalds get away with it?
They might food setters. There are specific rules about showing everything that is in the food but it doesnt have to be displayed as sold. So you can undertook it so it looks better. Use fresher stuff or push all the meat to the front and prop up the back with toothpicks. But it must contain the same stuff as sold. Its weird rules. But ai images surely break the rules.
They have a zillion dollars. What are you going to do about it?
That’s how.
Menu with only AI pictures and no text information. No matter what you order, they bring out a fresh piece of shit on toast.
The poster was meant to be temporary, she said, as they’ve been busy caring for their three kids — all under the age of 5 — while opening the restaurant. They didn’t even have a sign yet.
OK, I get it, but you’re still cooking the food. How hard is it to snap a few photos with a smartphone camera?
For now, they’ve strung LED lights in the window and stuck their pastry display in the middle for all to see Lyndsey’s homemade treats.
Now see that’s what they should have done in the first place.
After reading the entire article, they seem like OK people who made a bad decision. Hopefully things work out.
The temporary shit is always the excuse when they receive backlash over it.
They’re just full of shit and hoped they’d get away with it.
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Yeah seems like they’re understanding that people don’t like AI at least.
Use condoms. Don’t make others suffer for your life mistakes
How difficult is it to snap an actual pic of the food you make???
They hadn’t made any food, and it doesn’t sound like they ever made this food. They hired chefs after they opened to make smash burgers… fml like if they even had any idea what food was this wouldn’t have happened.
They wanted to open a business, they probably just asked an LLM for a [target audienece] selection of foods and that was it. Probably a deserved indictment
I’m an awful photographer. My wife and son are amazing photographers, and I know what a great photo looks like, but I can’t make my phone take good photos.
My food photos would definitely not be tempting.
in that case, you could just not have photos on the menu like tons of other cafes, instead of having false advertising
they might not even make it, or the actual food isnt that good.
Oh good Lord, those images looked creepy as hell. The pulled pork looked like it was covered with multi-colored maggots.
We all hate AI, why is that so hard for people to understand? Don’t use it, stop using it. If it’s not for a niche scientific study for the betterment of mankind, then fucking do it yourself.
She was frustrated. AJ was disheartened. “I want people to come to our restaurant, but, like, why is this such a big deal that it influences people on such intense level,” Lyndsey Lozano said. “Like, is it really that horrific that you have to act on such a feeling?”
Yeah. Don’t use the hell-lie machine. Easy.
Perhaps the sudden loss of a neighborhood staple — Citrus Club was open for decades and frequented for its cheap noodles and creative cocktails — made it hard to win favor with the tight-knit community.
Really? That’s the author’s take on why people might not like the use of AI?
I can see the connection if you judge it as a leap from a human, down to earth restaurant to the souless, AI driven slop factory that this new restaurant seemed to want to brand itself as.
Its like if you had a really good friend you haven’t talked to for a few years and then randomly find out they are now a MAGA tech bro.
There are AI menus everywhere in Spain. I fucking hate them. Nobody cares :(
The level of delusion in this owner is beyond belief, let this be a reminder that most people in business have no fucking clue what they’re doing.
Who the shit looked at that and thought “yeah that’ll push our product”?
why make it for all the menu items
