Fear This iPad Wine List
When the waiter at Central Park South restaurant South Gate hands you its custom-built iPad wine list, it's probably a hint you're overpaying for the wine. Prepare to hold on to your wallet.
All restaurants mark up wine heavily, to the point where 2.5 or maybe 2.75 times wholesale has come to be considered fair. But the fact that you're perusing the list on a $500 piece of technology, complete with a custom app whose production was anything but free, is a pretty good signal your check will be padding a considerably fatter margin, especially at the cheaper end of the list. Sure enough, South Gate already has a reputation as "way too swanky." But only in the most magical, revolutionary, so-effortless-you-hardly-knew-your-money-was-even-there sort of way.
