Digital dining: iPads as restaurant menus

The Chicago Cut steakhouse, an upscale eatery on the northern bank of the Chicago River, partnered with a technology firm to create a custom app that looks like a virtual wine cellar. It lists the restaurant's more than 750 wines, includes photos of bottles on wooden shelves and allows for searches based on variety, price or region of origin. Diners can also access information about a wine's taste, composition and a Google map of the vineyard.

For restaurants the iPads were a large investment, but they're already showing returns.

Technology is becoming increasingly important to restaurants and tabletop ordering devices only stand to multiply.

Diners usually fill out pieces of paper with their orders at the cafes, but iPads have simplified the process.

Restaurant owners must consider how to keep the tablets juiced up and also to prevent theft. And there are customers who won't want to use iPads.

Since April, when Apple debuted the iPad tablet, the device is now in use as a full menu at upscale restaurants, hamburger eateries and quick-service chains. Restaurateurs said that's just the beginning.