The version of this that I see a lot on the CA central coast is: Corkage is (often $10 to $25), two bottles maximum per table, with one fee waived per bottle purchased off the list. Then again, our world is one where most restaurants’ wine lists are generally populated with $40-80 bottles, with just a few bottles >$100.
I also see fewer and fewer restaurants mentioning their corkage fees on their websites or wine lists. That used to be easier to find online, but now it often takes a call.
Many restaurants have a staff member who is somewhat knowledgeable about wine or has a basic certification, maybe even a “beverages manager” or something, but there are very few restaurants with anything like a somm around.
i write this with genuine admiration, but man this feels so quaint and charming in comparison to what we have here in NYC. it feels like it costs $100 to just go outside sometimes.
It is simply that most restaurants are undercapitalized - I see so many chefs trying to raise 150-200k to open a restaurant and it’s just not possible. Or it is, but your runway is way too small and it’s impossible to build something that really generates enough profit to build on (in most cases). In order to generate wine revenue, you need the cash to have inventory. You 30% beverage cost means nothing if you only generate 10k in wine sales a year and pay your Somm 90K
The metrics of measuring success in a restaurant are antiquated - Worried about “beverage cost” rather than profitability - obviously it’s easy to use DRC as a reference but If you could make 7k from Romanee Conti and perhaps most people would buy it at 14k - why mark it up to 30k when you hold 7k in inventory for 3 years until someone buys it? You could have taken that 7k and sold it 100 times by then yielding way more than 23k in profits.
You’d be surprised the level of professionalism from most Somms. The drive, the eagerness. Sometimes this stems from them being an hourly position or salary and often (almost never) with any sort of commission, maybe the WD has a bonus with KPIS based around ( again )…Beverage cost but often never revenue or profits generated - that being said, the drive to put something together to see an increase revenue is not measured. It’s often based around not understanding the market of wine, the drive to get access to unique, rare, things people want to drink. The amount of time that I hear from Somms “how busy” they are. And then don’t hear back for weeks about an allocated wine. It’s honestly crazy. The people who have the most successful programs - respond to offers in minutes and also go out and seek wine
Everyone starts somewhere… so saying that it is young game, in the game is not really an argument - because myself or Robert to whomever you define of having "success " at one point knew nothing about wine. The issue is that most Sommeliers, want to learn about things that don’t really matter, rather than the realities of running a successful business. Most Somms (and sorry any Somms reading this that don’t fall into this category) but most, don’t even know how to read a P&L or Balance Sheet - let alone know what a P&L stands for.
The reality is, that people are going to bring corkage. That will forever be a thing and rather than trying to hate the people who bring corkage, why not figure out some way (long term goals) to embrace it and figure out how to make it work for you and for the restaurant. I don’t think that it means by charging stupid corkage fees. It stems from the root of the problem which is people not finding value. I started an entire business based around the people that bring corkage. It’s entirely possible - how about spend the time, get to know the people that bring corkage, be friend them, or do such a great job at providing service to them, that they start to trust you and when they come in - you introduce them to a wine they haven’t had. It’s really not that difficult to do so. I did it in Japan with people who I hardly spoke the same language as. I did it at 3 Michelin start restaurant and I did it a non-starred place.
The thing that Sommeliers first, forget to understand is that - you are the face and voice. The way you talk, stand, your eye contact, what you wear, the consistency in which you deliver is always weighed - MOST people buy wine or listen to others opinion from who they respect and trust. And not enough importance is put in this. People like People. If you like someone and have a relationship with them - you are not going to care (or at least care a lot less) about that extra $10 dollars you might save if you bought the wine at this restaurant or that restaurant or what the mark up/wholesale cost is.
I’d make an argument that the Sommelier CAN be the most valuable person in the restaurant.
Hustle. Work ethic. They didn’t slack. They knew that at any moment, there was another one of those names on the rise, and they would be surpassed. I haven’t seen much of that drive in the last 10ish years.
Oh, and my dear friend Andre Mack should be in that group. I would also say Tim Kopec.
Well at this point it’s just an arithmetic problem. There is some number (and some formula for compensating your staff) that is good all around and it’s just a matter of working it out, which seems to be exactly the thing you have the data for. (A few other key variables to account for, though - for example, some of the corkage-payers might otherwise have bought the Raveneau, but others would leave the table empty and dine elsewhere.)
sure, but as you note, not a simple or straightforward one. the better question, is it one worth figuring out compared with all the others? (that’s my main theme in the other thread).
As much as I don’t want you to quit your day job, mentoring the next generation on these points would really benefit so many. Thanks for speaking up. Hope to see you next week in LA?
I hope so! Well, it is for some places anyway, or they wouldn’t be doing corkage. More broadly, while I don’t know the business, if it is as tough as reputed and everyone’s relying on drink profits to scrape by, it’s probably not the worst idea in the world to maintain good will with weirdos like us who spend an irrational amount of money on drinks.
I don’t know all those names, but I know some of them haven’t been somm’ing in a long time. If you mean it’s a stepping stone to a bigger career somewhere in the wine industry, I can see that.
Because anyone with any “businesses” training knows this is how it’s done. For publicly traded companies lol. But small business? They’re not reporting earnings to stockholders, and cashing in options. You know your expenses, that tells you what your revenue needs to be, not much more to it.
Yeah, the NYC fine dining scene is a very different context than mine here in SLO. It’s fascinating to read threads like this as someone who has loved wine for 15+ years but has never spent $100 on a bottle of wine and who spends >$100 pp at a restaurant maybe once or twice a year. $100 corkage is a little hard to comprehend.
@ybarselah Can you please provide a link to this “other thread” that you keep mentioning? I did a search, but there are several threads discussing corkage.
