Walker Art Center Restaurant Cardamom Drops Table Service, Lays Off 16 Staffers
The restaurant inside the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is moving to QR-code ordering and counter service, a shift that will eliminate 16 front-of-house jobs this week. Cardamom, operated by DDP Restaurant Group, will no longer rely on servers to take orders at the table; customers will place orders on their phones instead, while kitchen staff and bartenders remain in place.
The company has described the change as a business decision shaped by uneven traffic and rising costs. Because the restaurant’s pace rises and falls with museum programming and seasonal attendance, staffing has often been difficult to calibrate, with workers either sent home early on slow days or stretched thin during busier periods, according to a spokesperson who spoke to MPR News.
Workers and labor advocates, however, say the move has a sharper edge. Some employees said the layoffs felt abrupt, and at least one suggested they were retaliatory, pointing to recent organizing efforts. Others warned that a QR-based system could reduce tip income, a significant part of pay for many front-of-house workers.
A spokesperson for the Walker Art Center said the museum and the restaurant are separate entities and that the institution cannot comment on “the restaurant leadership’s approach or decision making.”
The change reflects a broader service-industry shift that accelerated during Covid-19 and has remained in place at many restaurants and cafés. QR codes, once treated as a temporary pandemic workaround, have become a durable part of dining culture, often expanding from digital menus into full ordering and payment systems. Cardamom’s transition suggests that the technology is no longer just supplementing service. In some settings, it is replacing it entirely.
