The Perkins Paradigm

I stopped at Zeno one afternoon last week to meet a friend for a glass of wine. A lot has changed since the new owners took over last year.

When Zeno first opened in late 2003, it had an aggressive “we’re the coolest” culture: thrumming techno music, servers with multiple piercings, and two New York founders who were constantly circulating among the guests and slapping backs but — rumor had it — never paid their bills. But what irked me the most was the inconsistency: wine pours were sometimes five ounces, sometimes nine; the bottles would be freshly opened one time I visited, nearly vinegar the next. There seemed to be no standard.

I’m happy to say that the new and improved Zeno IS. The music has been turned down just a notch; the servers (at least the ones I’ve encountered) are friendly and knowledgeable; the wine menu is a little more refined and pours are a standard 7 ounces. But there is this oddity: Zeno now runs a “bottomless wine glass” special in the afternoons, from 3-7 p.m., serving customers as much wine as they can drink during that four-hour period. The cost is $10 for their bottom-of-the-barrel wines (Glass Mountain and Bella Sera) and $20 for the “premium” wines on their list.

A great deal? Well, yeah, it can be. . . .but that’s exactly the problem, as I see it. In order to make the $20 glass pay, you have to drink the equivalent of three glasses of wine (priced, per glass, at 7-10 dollars) before the dinner hour. Not to mention, you can buy an entire bottle of Glass Mountain Chardonnay retail for about 7 bucks. My friend loved the special because it allowed her to taste (and discard) several different options. And maybe I’m just more fretful than most, but the whole thing made me nervous. A bottomless wine glass at 4 p.m. seems like an invitation to be blotto by 6. Much like those bottomless cups of cheap coffee restaurants used to serve: I can still remember leaving Perkins at 15 with a sour stomach and a nearly deafening caffeine buzz.