Restaurant wine lists via iPad

A great achievement, or the work of the devil? Discuss amongst yourselves:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/dining/15ipad.html?_r=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bruce

Didnt Aureole do this 10 years ago?

Tried it…and while it was good to “save” wines for future viewing…a physical list was and is so much better.

Speaking generally, once I started using an iPad I would prefer to never again touch a book, magazine or newspaper.

It will be a great achievement when any restaurant can do this cheaply and easily without having to build custom software. Until then it is just a novelty. This is just augmented reality – letting you quickly and easily leverage data from the cloud to make a good decision. Love it! BTW, there are multiple companies looking at building things for the space which is great.

Done well with good navigation it should beat the pants off a traditional list. Done poorly and it will be sucky and expensive.

This is going to be huge. Great idea. Maybe with direct links to cellar tracker?

Yes I am very open to that.

Links to CT - that would be great… I look like a clown sometimes pulling wines up on my BBerry when I am making a restaurant decision. It would be great to browse a list, mark a few that look interesting, reference CT for notes & value, and then be off & running. I would prob drink more during dinner…

Barbacco in SF does a great job with their iPad list.

Wineries (of which we are one) can submit notes, vineyard and winemaking shots, background info and other relevant details.

The only thing with linking out to ratings is they may have no correlation to how that wine works with the restaurant’s food.

Fixed.

Bruce

AGH! That goofy electronic wine list at Aureole is a nightmare. It was difficult to “browse” - you actually had to know what you wanted and then down and down the hierarchy to get your wine. But it presupposed that you knew it existed! A complete nightmare. (And let’s not talk about having “saved” your choice and then accidentally finding out that you just cleared all of your choices…)

If the iPad can incorporate the serendipity of physical list browsing, then it could well work.

Yep, that is the key. And having seen how things like WIRED magazine can translate to the iPad, I am quite confident that a good designer can come up with something very special.

I have too agree that Aureole’s device really sucks, it was a good concept though that may finally work with the iPad.

Think this is a great idea.

Need to ensure thought that the lists are always up to date, else it is virtually useless…

Should be a no brainer for the ipad to keep current inventory as selections are made.
I read somewhere that they are shipping 2 million+ of the IPads a month. Pretty soon the whole earth is going to be shaped like an apple!

Actually for this to REALLY work the need to have seamless integration between their POS (Point of Sale) systems and any other backend inventory tool they are using. And really for it to work, the restaurant needs to be able to manage this data in exactly one Holy Grail place and have it sync to devices (iPad etc.), POS and so forth. Some potentially pretty tricky stuff.

But if they could/would use this to upload a somewhat realtime list to their websites, it would be the greatest advance since the corkscrew.

“any other backend inventory tool they are using”

That’s usually a bartender / “sommelier” either hung over and swilling coffee (before service) or slightly tipsy and drinking leftover wines (after service). Good luck with that…

Cellartracker POS Integration w/ IPAD support…

I smell a new business opportunity.

need any investors?

get the cor.kz application for your phone. It integrates to CT and works very well when you are sitting at a restaurant and need to check reviews of a particular wine. Great app. and cheap.

Well, I completely agree with the benefit if they can integrate with a real-time update to a website listing of wines. It would be VERY helpful to be able to view the wine list online before going to the restaurant. First, I would be able to look at the pricing and decide if the pricing is reasonable before I make the reservation (or decide whether to BYOB with corkage). Second, it would give me some good ideas on wines before I get there, so I don’t have to take several minutes to read the list for the first time when I sit down…

Bruce

I think something like this is only worth doing if in fact the restaurant has one Holy Grail database that drives the POS, website, iPad, printed books if they retain those etc. And then ONE place to update the inventory and have that flow. If nothing else, maybe the push for glitzy iPads might bring some restaurants from the dark ages into a world of synchronized modernity.