AI 'slop' is dominating menus, as some restaurant owners turn to it to save time and money

Diners have taken to the internet to share photos of sandwich boards and window displays bearing food they say looks rubbery, surreal and seems to be created with artificial intelligence tools — which have made it increasingly easy to generate visuals on the cheap.

"This looks like what aliens would put in a presentation about what Earth food is," a Reddit user captioned in a post accompanied by a picture of a sandwich board with breaded shrimp and gyros with suspiciously geometric textures.

Others described a CNE sandwich they assumed to be AI-generated as " uncanny and nauseating " and "slop."

And for some Toronto customers, these kinds of images aren't just stomach-turning — they take them as a signal of the restaurant's values.

"I feel like it's really inauthentic and it doesn't make me wanna go eat at your restaurant," said Cynthia Lem.