We are so lucky here in New Jersey…so many really good restaurants all over the state that are totally BYO, no corkage fee at all! In fact, I am so used to dining at BYO places that it kills me to pay the markup on wine on the rare occasions when we do go to a restaurant with a liquor license…
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Where is that?
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My favorite is effectively de-escalating corkage: buy a bottle bring your own for free. One of my favorite places here does this, and not for that reason, it is just icing on the cake.
Especially if they will supply good glassware, what you are describing sounds like a bargain.
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This (and my family/friends) are what I miss most about living in NJ!
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I’ve seen several restaurants do tiered corkage. I’ve personally got no issues with it. In those cases, I just calculate what the effective per bottle corkage is for all bottles brought. So in your example, it’d be 42.5/b for two bottles. I’m ok with paying that for corkage, but everyone has their own opinions on what corkage should cost.
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I organized our year-end wine dinner Weds at Citrin (new *, but that is beside the point), corkage was $50/person, regardless of number of bottles. Food was very good, wine service, too; we opened 18 bottles for the 11 of us (200+ wine glasses and a dozen decanters).
I thought the flat fee was fair, given the excellent wine service.
I was happily surprised by the group consensus that we should meet every other month for top-notch food and service rather than monthly for (more) modest food and service. We’ve been doing this monthly together for 15+ years and we’d become more casual with our dinners several years ago. Sometimes free isn’t better than not free.
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Very fair for both parties on that one.
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There are some restaurants that I’d pay that for (not many) but we’ll see how that goes tonight. Most places in Chicago seem to hover between $25 and $35 post-pandemic, but more often than not I have corkage waived.
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I had the weirdest corkage policy applied to us.
I asked what corkage was when we arrived. Waiter didn’t know since apparently no one has done this. He went to ask.
He came back “it depends on the bottle. Can I take it to my manager”
He did.
Came back and told us $25 each. Which was fine. Just weird.
Also weird cause they refused to initially sell us shots of tequila until the manager arrived despite having a full bar 
I think for a high end restaurant to make $7-10 per drink is perfectly reasonable, whether you bring it or they make it.
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Our favorite restaurant charges $15 for the 1st bottle and $25 for each subsequent bottle.
Pizzeria Rosso in Santa Rosa is $0 all day and all night.
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I’m more interested in why you’re all doing shots before a wine dinner? 
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It would be great if they applied that to their by the bottle list as well
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Agreed, but it’s not going to happen (yes there are a few exceptions) which I why I don’t even flinch until corkage hits above $75.
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I didn’t think the corkage in the OP was unreasonable. I guess it depends on the level of dining and service quality.
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Yes, most of us have seen tiered corkage before, David,
Seems to be the consensus answer. I much prefer that to place that limit how many bottles you can bring, which is more common: 1 per two people or whatever.
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I’ve never seen it in Chicago, which is why I asked. I have to get our more
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I can relate to that! 
Le Mont. I have no idea what the corkage policy is, but it doesn’t matter.
Update. The food was quite good. Very meh wine list with 33 bottles total, none over $96. The corkage policy doesn’t make a lot of sense to me
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