Hi All, relatively new here. I am curious to hear about anybody’s experience with renting a wine locker at a restaurant. What were the costs/rules involved? Any special perks associated with renting the locker (e.g. priority reservations, printed personal wine list)? Any particularly good or bad experiences?
Never had one but the ones I’ve seen are not temperature controlled so that would be an issue for me.
I have a locker at a club (which is temperature-controlled) and find I never use the club. I wouldn’t rent a locker unless I already found myself eating someplace often enough to make it worthwhile.
Brad,
You might get better treatment at a restaurant because you rent one of their lockers, but for most restaurants the key to becoming very welcomed guests is going there a lot. Frequent face time, more than big spending or tipping, is usually what matters to restaurant staff and management.
I always thought of it as more of a vanity thing. (Having your name up on the wall for guests to see).
That was how it seemed to me as well. That and being able to tell the folks you are dining with about it. Though it’s perfectly harmless too, in my view.
Anyone know what you pay for those or how it works?
I would also expect all the answers to the questions in the OP (cost, ‘rules,’ etc) would vary from place to place so what’s the point of asking here? Why not just pose your questions to the restaurant where you might like to rent a locker and ask them about their specifics?
I was a manager at a restaurant with wine lockers, and like Brent mentioned, I’m guessing policies vary from place to place…for ours, there was no rental cost, and locker holders bought the wine from us (at 10% off list price). Also had an annual “locker party” where we’d bring in distributors to taste locker holders on various wines (some of which were on the list, some of which weren’t), and I think we take 20% off list price for locker party purchases.
In addition to the “perks” that have been noted by other posters, some of our locker holders allowed their friends to access their locker when they (the locker holders) weren’t dining…
I took the OP to be wanting to discuss the issue generally, not that he was hoping one of us would tell him the cost and rules at some given restaurant he had in mind.
Cody, if there were no rental cost and only discounts and perks, how were the lockers allocated? Did you have to be a good/frequent enough customer? What if someone not in that category asked to have one? Thanks.
I really don’t know how the lockers were initially allocated: I started working there a year and a half after the restaurant opened and wasn’t there at the time.
After the initial allocation, it was mostly relationship–folks who dined there often and got to know the GM got “on the list” for when a locker opened up. They did change over from time to time–if a locker holder had only a bottle or two in the locker and hadn’t been in for a while, there was a process for shifting the locker to someone else. They are essentially revenue sources, so the goal was to get them in the hands of folks who would use them frequently and restock frequently.
The “waiting list” was pretty subjective, so folks who dined with us frequently had higher priority.
I have one at our Country Club. $10 corkage paid when the wine goes in the temp controlled locker, nothing when consumed. It’s a win/win. I drink great wine at a fraction of restaurant pricing and the Club gets a much bigger percentage of my dining budget.
I’ve got a locker at a destination country club. Temp controlled, personalized wine list, decanting, nicer glassware for a small annual fee (no per bottle corkage). A very nice perk.
That’s interesting about the country clubs.
It’s nothing I’ve seen locally but I can see circumstances where it could make sense.
If it’s a place you dine at regularly and would like drink your older wines at you could have them there undisturbed to be decanted on site. That could be a definite plus depending on cost.
I’ve seen a pretty wide range of services offered with wine storage at restaurants, clubs, and storage facilities. Seems like there are more options near big cities, but that’s also just where I’ve looked.
The facility I store at (San Francisco Wine Center) offers a couple private rooms where members can host private events, whether it’s a casual popping of a few bottles with friends, or something more formal with catering, etc. They also run classes and other public events. I’ve been to clubs in SF that allow for private wine storage (think restaurant with lockers) as well.
My point is that there are myriad combinations of services offered. I wouldn’t expect to see any standardization. Really the only way to figure out what is available is calling local facilities/clubs, or using boards like this one.