Thank you for the explaination and your experiences.

How the situation is currently at IC Istanbul reminds me very strongly about the situation that develloped at IC Lyon.

Once upon a time IC Lyon had a Club Intercontinental lounge.
It was small but of good quality.
But the balance was disturbed by management viewing annual lounge pass holders and RA as pesky leeches.
It began to view the lounge as a costcenter, in order to turn things around back to profit,
officially IC Lyon stated: " Club Intercontinental guests, please enjoy breakfast at restaurant Epona"
Thus paying Club guests got to enjoy full breakfast at restaurant Epona.
Annual lounge pass holders could not enjoy full breakfast at restaurant Epona.
IC Lyon was firm in that the club lounge was open in the morning and did provide a coffeemachine and croissants as breakfast.
They explicit quoted the annual lounge pass t&c that dictates that annual lounge pass holders can only enjoy the F&B in the physical Club Intercontinental lounge space, not anything outside that scope.

Even RA could not enjoy the full breakfast at restaurant Epona and was limited to breakfast at the Club Intercontinental lounge, as according to the t&c.
RA can only enjoy breakfast in the restaurant if a hotel has no Club Intercontinental lounge,
Thus IC Lyon in its quest of beancounting found a shrewd way to twist the circumstances to fit t&c to reduce cost pressure on its Club Intercontinental lounge, while still providing USP for paying Club guests and generating profit. And all legal sticking to the t&c of IHG-1rewards and IC AMB program.

Eventually it was all futile anyway as IC Lyon did away with its lounge as it caused so much headache with complaints, costs, confusion and compensations. Having no lounge at all became the easiest choice for them.

Which i suspect IC Istanbul might in secret contemplate and could eventually consider .......
With the limited offering at the lounge, the weird mixed use of space of the club lounge & wintergarden as payable venue and the QR-code as tantalizing reminder that more&better food cook to order is available at extra cost.......
Could also be a sign that if full renovations are done across all rooms and back of the house, the owners might attempt to switch chains to a brand where no lounge is needed anymore as brand standard.....
Just my hunch of Madame Doloris' crystal ball which seems to have tuned in to certain loval vibrations floating about .....