I get why restaurants use the cartoon-looking slop. If you don't particularly care that it signals that you put no effort into your menu or ad or that your restaurant's menu has the same shitty aesthetic as all other slop, fine. It's a cartoon and I could understand someone thinking it looks ok.

I absolutely do not get the uncanny-valley images. Those all look gross. Besides not actually being representative of the dish, the images have all sorts of weird texture issues, look too glossy, and are just unappetizing. I cannot understand why a restaurant owner would want to put up an ad that has food that looks straight up gross.

The thing with those "AI Slop" comments are generally from people whom are opinionated about the image. However it's abundantly clear that the target demographic which is the customers generally don't mind. If you think about it, We have been conditioned by the "for illustrative purposes only" label on most food images that at this point most people just want a reference so they can decide what to eat. I'd take an AI image over just words any day.