said by Pentangle:Most decent restaurants now have portable card readers. They just bring them to your table and wait while you punch in your pin.
That's only for Chip & Pin cards (C&P) - basically just in Canada & Europe right now, but coming to credit cards everywhere eventually.
Just be aware that there are ways around the PIN if your card is lost/stolen. Even though my C&P card was not stolen I have gotten authorization using an invalid PIN for $15k on my card. And there are other ways around C&P technology - see research from University of Cambridge in England for details.