Don’t feel like waiting in a restaurant to place an order? Head to De Santos in New York City. The Italian resto, in West Village that used to be the frequent haunt of Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan recently completed its transition from using traditional serving methods to relying completely on the iPad. The owners made this move for two reasons — to streamline the restaurant's ordering system and to add to the visual aspect of the establishment.

The restaurant's iPad is loaded with a custom-built point of sale (POS) system that appears as an app on the tablet. It has the full menu you can look at so you know exactly what you're buying. Orders are then sent wirelessly to the kitchen for preparation. Paying with a credit card? No problemo. The iPads have swipers, and the POS has a Square-like credit card payment system.

While it seems ludicrous to replace cheap pen and paper for taking orders with iPads, the owners claim they're actually saving money by making the transition. Orders are placed and prepared faster, and they get to monitor employees remotely — tough luck for the friendly waiter or waitress who's inclined to slip someone a free drink every now and then, though. concept of Restaurants using iPads is not new and has been famous in places like Southern California and China but surprisingly it's a first for any New York restaurant.