South Carolina-Based App Creates “Point-of-Table” Dining Experience.
You want to order a glass of wine but aren’t sure about food pairing or vintage or how you should expect it to taste. You could ask a sommelier, but that assumes there is one at the restaurant. Chances are, you won’t see one. What do you do then?
Greenville restaurateur Rick Erwin (Rick Erwin’s West End Grille and Rick Erwin’s Nantucket Seafood) may have the answer.
He calls it TopCellar. When CRESCENT talked with Erwin, who also serves as the chairman of the South Carolina Hospitality Association, he wasn’t reading product bullet points. This is something he views as revolutionizing the restaurant industry and sensory dining experiences for customers.
TopCellar has been used in Erwin’s restaurants for a while, but with additional development and customer feedback, Erwin’s tablet-based dining assistant is expected to be available via iTunes this fall.
The iPad app is designed to help you learn everything you want to know about what you’re about to order.
Erwin didn’t set out to create the dining industry’s next big innovation, though. “I tried to buy something like this off the shelf a couple of years ago when I was in Chicago at the National Restaurant Association convention, looking at what iPad technology was out there for the wine list,” he said. Erwin heard through the grapevine (SEE: “Pun”) that other restaurants in the Southeast already implemented iPad use and saw immediate sales growth.
“What’s the difference between a paper wine list and one that’s on the iPad? Basically, it’s information. Customers that are looking to purchase wine are often intimidated.” He said that the paper wine list can provide the customer information about a wine’s vintage, appellation, and price, but not much else. An interactive wine list through a tablet device such as an iPad allows the customer to get more information, and that, Erwin said, “is what customers really thirst for.”
Erwin’s app also allows customers to find a wine tailored to their wants. “The customer, let’s say, wants to buy a $50 bottle of wine, and he or she wants a Pinot Noir, and that customer wants it to be from the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, California. This allows a customer to find that wine,” and filters by the guidelines entered by the customer.
He said that not only is it important to put “your information to your customer in a format that’s easy to navigate, easy to go and look at what is available,” but that for the restaurant, it should be easy to update. With the app, restaurant staff can update lists almost immediately. If the restaurant runs out of a wine, the staff simply removes it from the list until it’s restocked. Updating a paper list requires time and the expense of reprinting the entire list.
Erwin believes the reason sales increase as a result of an app like TopCellar is because customers are able to make better quality decisions. “With this, they’re almost able to experience the wine before they get it because they know what it’s gonna taste like, they know what it’s gonna go well with, and they know where it came from.”
TopCellar is being designed to be made available for download through iTunes in two separate configurations: TopCellar and TopCellar PRO. The TopCellar app, to be priced at a one-time download fee of $99.00, will offer the comprehensive point-of-table experience for beer, wine, and spirit sales. TopCellar PRO will extend include those features as well as covering full, customized menu options for restaurants and will be offered at a one-time download fee of $599.00.
Erwin said that while TopCellar will be available on the iPad only in the initial launch, the app should be available in other operating platforms at some point in 2013. A private beta version available now by invitation
More information about TopCellar is available at www.TopCellarApp.com. TopCellar can also be found on Facebook at facebook.com/TopCellar and Twitter at @TopCellarApp.
PHOTO CREDIT: Rick Erwin/TopCellar
