AI-generated Deli menus are freaking people out: Here’s why

Chris Murphy was on his lunch break in downtown Chicago when a sandwich board stopped him cold. Every image on the menu at Chi-Town Deli was AI-generated, and the Reuben, he said, "looks like vomit".

Photos like Murphy’s were circulating rapidly on social media, becoming part of a broader phenomenon of “cursed” images: burgers with honeycomb-shaped bread rolls, cheesesteaks where the ingredients appear to merge into each other, and, most notably in an image posted by technology journalist Sam Biddle, a deli sign adorned with glossy “shrimp-shaped bagels".

Ali Malik, who manages the deli, told Business Insider that this poster was simply an employee's interim solution while he awaited actual photographs, but many shoppers do not see the need to wait for context.

It is happening across the United States, primarily at cheap food vendors rather than high-end restaurants. Similar instances of AI-generated imagery have been reported by customers outside coffee shops, food trucks, and even inside mailers, with the owners of a bakery in San Francisco being subject to graffiti because of this imagery this summer.

Independent delis and food carts often run on thin margins with no marketing budget, and AI image generators are free and instant compared to hiring a photographer.

Restaurant critics note the trend is especially common among immigrant-owned food carts, where AI-generated dumplings or empanadas at least attempt to represent dishes that stock photography never covered in the first place.

Similarly, a Wyoming soda fountain's handwritten cardboard sign reading "We will not be using AI flyers or photos" pulled in more than 71,000 likes, and a UK bar followed with its own version.