Your point is well-taken. I live in probably the quirkiest wine & food city in the country - Philadelphia. The restaurants buy their wines in the same state-controlled stores as consumers do, and for the same prices. On top of that, their margins are horrible. The only restaurants that move much wine are focused on the tourist crowd, which is not insubstantial. The (nearby) neighborhoods are loaded with BYOs that are committed to great food (ah, shucks). The situation is worsened by the fact that in the heart of the City, liquor licenses often sell for ~$400K (not a typo), Insurance, storage, and staffing just add to the costs of already over-priced wines. There is a reason that PHL is the largest BYO city in the US and at the same time, one of the great food scenes. Just sayin’…
Last thing I want is to pay another 20-25% tip on top of a 4x marked up wine
This. I have never, never understood why this “law“ of retail seems to be ignored by restaurants.
Too many merchants (and restauranteurs) love the margin percents more than the cash in the till. Except at the very high end, wine sales are not as lucrative as they first seem once they are fully costed out - inventory, and the money tied up in it, storage space, insurance, etc. It is a lot easier to increase food prices a bit than to convince people to ‘spend stupid’ on wine.
Sounds like Uva in Boston, which I never made it to but was legendary in online wine discussions in the mid-90s.
I feel like Burgundy prices in restaurants fit a different category since retail cost is often so much higher than wholesale. Restaurants with long standing allocations still get these wines at very reasonable prices which make their 3x markup seem like a good deal to us.
It just seems to me that most restaurants continue to move forward with both lists and pricing structures that make many not want to purchase wines in general, and higher priced red wines in particular. Combine that with higher and higher corkage fees are select restaurants, and you have a recipe for folks drinking more cocktails and other alternatives when dining out.
I also agree that the choices at too many restaurants are lacking - which is really surprising with the number of ‘somms’ that are out there 
One would think that restaurants would be pricing their wines to move them faster and reduce holding costs - but instead seem content on just having those wines remain line items that do not generate any revenue whatsoever.
There certainly are a small number of restaurants that get it - price their wines at lower multiples of retail, offer a broader selection of wines, etc. But consumers who want a wide selection of ‘correctly aged wines’ are going to have to expect to pay $$$ for these at restaurants knowing the restaurants are taking the ‘risk’ of purchasing and holding these at their cost in order to give you a better selection.
Loving the thread and the comments thus far . . .
Cheers
Have read the full thread up to the time of this post. It has been noted numerous times in the past that the general wealth represented by Berserkers is higher than the norm (probably much higher). As a result, “restaurants per se” are a normal topic. But stepping back and taking in the population as a whole, is there demand for as many restaurants as exist? To answer this one needs to define “restaurant” in this context. It’s not Applebees or the local Greek diner. As I have said in the past my wife and I rarely eat out. So the fate of restaurants writ large doesn’t impact me. Like watching a car crash on the 6:00 news. But I think it is a legitimate question to ask if we “need” the quantity of “fine” dining establishments in existence?
Many here adore market forces. If companies make too many cars, prices go down and/or companies go out of business/merge. Same thing if you had ten dry cleaners in a square mile, too many. (The only exceptions seem to be Dunkin and Starbucks.) To the average person they’d just shrug and go “there’s goes that invisible hand”. Is the sentiment that the extant quantity of restaurants should be the norm?
My partner brought up an interesting observation last night. I tend to order more wine by the bottle at restaurants when I am seeing family in Baltimore. Many of the places we tend to go to have a lot of wine at a reasonable price. Nothing high end or aged. A bottle of KJ Chard goes pretty damned well with crab cakes. And when priced at $32/bottle, ordering a bottle for the table becomes an easy decision.
Another place I went to recently had a pretty solid Bourgogne blanc at $45 - when I looked up the wine it was only priced at 2x local retail.
Do I find it fun to look at these massive wine lists with a ton of vintages? Yes. But I am maybe in a position once a year where I have the budget to spend $500+ on a bottle, with people who would appreciate said bottle, and I am at a restaurant with that type of list. Furthermore if I am ordering a tasting menu, I am almost always going for the wine pairing since I find that way more interesting.
Business/conference dinners and people who actually live in those cities. Many locals tend to dine out on Wednesday or Thursday night to avoid the bridge and tunnel or weekend crowd. I rarely book a reservation in SF for a Friday or Saturday night unless it involves friends or family in town.
The rise of DoorDash/UberEats has certainly reduced my restaurant-going by a super-large percentage, probably 80%. This hurts the everyday restaurants the most – the high-end Mexican place, the Amici’s pizzeria, etc. It does not replace the occasional super-luxe outing to the Michelins, though, which appear to still be doing fine.
John, also check out Momoyama in Portland, we’re headed there tonight for the 2nd time, terrific spot. I’m excited to try Jim’s recommendation now too, very close by!
Yes, this conversation has been going in various threads around the board and I think this is exactly the point. Things always evolve and there is no reason not to expect the restaurant landscape to look very different in the next 20 years as opposed to the past 20 years (like all industries).
I’m not sure when I last bought a bottle at a restaurant. If the don’t allow corkage at a reasonable rate, I’ll forego the restaurant or during a couple of martinis with dinner
We were supposed to go to Italian Village here in Chicago for a celebration last night(a Covid outbreak got in the way). A 25 page wine list and $15 corkage is something I could live with
That’s the hamachi sushi at Syun. Tasted like rose petals and magic. Huge menu. Karage is excellent (and I think it’s like $8 for a generous portion). Enormous selection of specialty rolls. They also have a lunch special that is crazy generous.
I’m not in the business, but as a customer it certainly feels that way.
The other great point from upthread is that while pricing is a big factor, so is quality. There are so many good $20-60 (at retail) wines out there with character and interest. There are so many good Bordeaux these days for $25-50, but you never see them on restaurant lists.
If a restaurant would sell those, even at a 2-2.5x markup, that would still be very favorable to consumers. But when it’s a bunch of supermarket wine, and it’s just priced to maximize per bottle revenue, then I’ll BYO or just go elsewhere.
In Italy, I think markups are smaller than that. so many choices 60 euros or less.
Spend 150 euros at Roschioli and you get something very special.
Actually, the markups to the restaurant may not be smaller. The primary culprit here is the distributor. They take a huge cut. While they often perform a real service - access to hard to get wines, either by scarcity or locale, retailerd and restaurants have no choice but to buy through them. In Europe (and elsewhere) the restaurant can make its own deals and buy direct from the winery. Judy and I were having lunch in a small town in the Veneto when the owner pulled up in his car and started to unload the trunk - inside? Wine, of course. He just came from his favorite winery. No middleman fees!!
Alcohol markups were the thread of lifeline to restaurants in 2020 and may ultimately be the noose around their neck as the strength of the higher end global consumer is being stressed even with record high asset prices. Just look at luxury bags for a taste of things.
The reality is with real estate and commodity prices skyrocketing, the cost equation of doing business has become prohibitive for many business models. The likely resolution is a meaningful decimation of many establishments, sad to say.
It’s kind of like the quirky storefronts in the west village of Manhattan being slowly replaced by bank branches.
Health care angle: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/28/opinion/resturant-workers-health-care-crisis.html
Do you know what the average distributor gross margin is in the US?