Guest Buys $20,000+ Bottle of Wine on iPad Wine List POS App3 min read
Flagstaff House Restaurant in Boulder, Colorado turned 40 this year. To celebrate, the venerable family-owned and operated restaurant put its Wine Spectator Grand Award-winning wine list on an iPad POS app earlier this year and will host an Anniversary Gala on October 16th. Eight of Boulder’s most well-known chefs — Dave Query (Big Red F Restaurants, which includes Jax Fish House, West End Tavern and Zolo Grill), John Platt (Q’s), Eric Skokan (Black Cat bistro), Jim Cohen (The Empire Lounge and Restaurant, and Pizzeria da Lupo), Antonio Laudisio (Laudisio’s Italian Restaurant), Tony Hessel (The Mediterranean), Radek Cerny (L’Atelier), and Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson (Frasca Food and Wine) – will join Flagstaff House Partner, Chef Mark Monette, to cook dinner for the multi-course, birthday-bash.
The coveted Wine Spectator Grand Award recognizes the world’s greatest wine lists. Flagstaff House, which now presents its 2,500+ labels on an iPad POS app, has earned the award every year since 1983. The restaurant has also received a number of other prestigious awards, including the Forbes 4-Star Award (formerly, the Mobil 4-Star Award), since 1978, the AAA 4-Diamond Award, since 1980, and the Distinguished Restaurants of North America (DiRōNA) award for Achievement of Distinction in Dining, since 1985.
The restaurant’s wine cellar houses “more than 12,000 bottles of wine,” according to Flagstaff House General Manager and Partner, Scott Monette, who says its “one of the most comprehensive wine lists in the country.” The old printed wine list was a bound book – about the size of a novel; searching the list was a daunting task for anyone. Now, the new state-of-the-art POS app makes it easy for guests to navigate the extensive list and helps them discover new wines, without feeling overwhelmed or intimidated.
Guests can search the world-class collection of wines by a wide-range of categories, such as region, grape variety, or price; find a wealth of information on each of the restaurant’s wines, such as tasting notes and information on the vineyard, winery, or region; view photos and wine labels, watch videos, locate the winery on an interactive map, order directly from the POS app.
A guest could also take a virtual trip around the globe to visit any number of the long list of boutique wineries featured on Flagstaff House’s POS app, such as the Araujo Estate and 38-acre Eisele vineyard, the small, family-owned, Dalla Valle Vineyards (which produces only 2 estate wines: the Cabernet Sauvignon – Napa Valley and a proprietary red wine called Maya), and the 240-acre Harlan Estate in Oakville – all in California’s Napa Valley, or the Leonitti Cellar in the Walla Walla Valley of Washington. (Be sure to read our previous blog post, “A Wine for all Seasons: New iPad Menu Features 500 Wine Labels.”)
There is still plenty of personal attention. For example, guests can place a number of wines on a list of those “under consideration” to discuss individually with the sommelier. This feature of the on the POS app also provides an opportunity for privacy and discretion. A guest could indicate their desired price range to the sommelier from their selections alone, without having to mention a specific monetary amount, or a well-heeled buyer could move an expensive bottle onto the “consideration list” to let the sommelier know their interest. Scott tells of one guest who bought a bottle of wine priced at over $20,000 without any of the other guests being aware of the transaction. Without saying a word, the guest simply indicated on the POS app that the wine was “under consideration” and handed the iPad wine list to the sommelier.
Disclaimer: This is an independent report sourced from one or more news articles and or press releases; none of the company’s, entities or technologies digressed in this report are affiliated with or a client of Aptito.
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