I’m guessing they would rather have 2 seatings ordering food and 2 bottles of wine than one seating ordering food and 6 bottles of wine. But that’s just a guess from some of the posts above.
I’ve only been to two wine events where an attendee behaved really badly (same person). One of the restaurants disallowed corkage after that and I always wondered if she factored into the end of the Peter Pratts events.
Thanks for the input. From what you say and from “my” personal experience, what I can gather so far is that most wine berserker people do not fit the “typical” BYO clientele you describe above and maybe that is where the whole misunderstanding comes from. Surely no one here in WB would bring some grocery wine to a restaurant and also behave in the manner you described above (at least I hope not). So basically 99% of BYO folk behave very differently from WB folk, which means WB folk are just really a small drop in the bucket hence the corkage policies (and reluctance by restaurant people) stem from that other 99%. Just guessing here.
When it comes to being annoying, opinion is fact. In my world, if you are percieved as being annoying,or a hassle, then you are annoying or a hassle. There is no other test other than the opinion of the other person. Whether they should be annoyed is another story, but not relevant.
There was a lot more said in this thread than it’s a bad class of people. A 6 top with 6 bottles take more time at the table (like 50% to double) at a wine dinner than those just ordering off a list (and they often don’t order 50% to 100% more food), then on a busy night, you are costing the restaurant money. This definitely applies to the WB people I have dined with - we take longer. I have never been in a party of 6 at a restaurant where we ordered off the list where we ordered 6 bottles (unless we went because we knew it was way underpriced), so whether it’s longer than this hypothetical, I don’t know and isn’t relevant.
And I can say that I have had folks in my various wine groups that were always annoying me when it was time for me to cooordinate. I accept the offer of corkage and don’t negotiate (unless it’s clearly a unique situation, like large party where the standard policy doesn’t it fit). That wasn’t acceptible to some of my group - I can only imagine how annoying they are to the restaurant when they coordinate.
I in general get excellent BYO treatment, in places where others haven’t. If you are a regular, coming in on a Tuesday or Monday, and tip the staff generously, they may be happy just to fill up the place and keep the servers happy. I could always put together a wine dinner with free corkage there on Monday or Tuesday, but no waived corkage on Saturday.
I don’t want to bend this into far more serious and important issues, but I definitely don’t accept the premise that “one group of people thinks all/most of the people in this other group are bad” means that therefore, they are like that. Especially when there are pretty obvious incentives that could affect the first group’s perspectives.
The rest of your post makes sense to me, but this seems less clear. I suppose it’s true if the corkage fee is less than markup on a bottle of wine, but otherwise I don’t think it’s true. Or I suppose it could also be true if you weren’t restocking your cellar after selling bottles. But I think that’s an unusual case.
Can you explain?
Put down the shovel.
2 bottle limit for all tables, drives me nut. Give a head count limit, not a per table limit. 6-8 top should not be the same as a 2 top
I appreciate corkage, lots of restaurants in PA have awful, overpriced lists. Having said said that, this thread reminds of when I was a kid. I did some leaf raking for a woman for a set hourly rate. When I was done and paid she said she could give me twice as much work if I’d agree to cut the hourly rate in half. First and only job I did for her.
We customers can all sit around thinking of ways restaurants can or should make money with corkage but no one in the business has come on here to reveal how to make money with corkage. I’ll guess there’s a reason for that.
We have a large local spot that for years offer free corkage. Food was on the pricey side, but not too bad. They used to not be regularly at maximum capacity. Later on I heard from various wine friends people were being obnoxiously abusive of the policy, like you relate. It just got to be a regular thing. At the same time they’d gotten to the point they were always at max capacity, so they drunk entitled jerks are preventing them from turning over tables, costing them money and making service worse for good customers. So, they switched to corkage with a 2 bottle max. Sad that people are like that. They’d loved having the various groups I’d gone there with. Order tons of food, take care of our own wines, share pours with the staff, tip very generously, leave a bunch of excellent partially full bottles for their wind down. We made it fun, educational and enlightening for the staff.
If it’s the restaurant setting the bottle prices, they already did the math. Then they can decide if they want to make corkage equal the average margin of list wine sales, or the low end, or what, in accordance with their business model.
But, I have an example that worked well for one restaurant I got the inside view of. They tracked all upsales, so apps, salads, desert, etc., as well as wine. They made an art out of maximizing per table sales, as well as being an extremely wine-friendly spot. They’d had too much trouble with people returning perfectly fine older bottles, so dispensed with that. They maintained an excellent two page list of younger wines at reasonable markup. Corkage was normal. I should say they were designed as a regulars restaurant. Unlike most restaurants in the area, you’d see wine on nearly every table. Their efforts meant most of their wine sales was list. What people brought in was special - you’d see something jaw-dropping on a table or two most times.
Our goal with wine dinner groups here is to find good places that want our business, then enthusiastically want us coming back regularly. So yes, that’s generally a slow night, bring our own stems, serve our own wines, order lots of food, tips very well, etc. Some details vary. But, it’s negotiated ahead of time. Usually by someone who’s already a regular (or better), so it’s not a cold call to them, and the appropriateness of the venue to what we’re interested in is already sniffed out.
From Kent Comleys post
It was a common site to see people bringing esky’s (chillers) into restaurants full of cold beers and maybe a bottle of cheap wine. Thus the restaurant bore no cost of inventory or staff for beverage service.
This is the third way that many decent restaurants in Pennsylvania have gone. Since buying from the PA State system allows for very little wholesale margin for restaurants who purchase wine, many restaurants who want to serve above average food have decided they would rather concentrate on the menu. They price the food appropriately to make a profit, then take as set margin on corkage fee and dispense with the expense and hassle of managing a wine list. Or at least a minimal cost wine list for those diners who dont want BYO. Judging by the quality of restaurants in Philly (where you can get, on average, better and more creative food than NYC (take THAT Manhattanites), these establishments are doing quite nicely. People generally adapt to policies over time and if more demanding diners (who actually appreciate the food quality and creativity) learn the etiquette of BYO it is really a win/win proposition. If customers bitch about the corkage fee, I would politely point out to them many fine establishments who will charge 2-3-4X retail for the same bottle of wine and suggest they patronize that establishment. Economic savvy has never been a big part of Americans DNA.
The Philadelphia experiment is one worth noting, as is the California culture of BYO. It seems that neither of these situations is resulting in mass bankruptcy of the restaurant industry (well, at least no greater than the usual mass bankruptcy of the restaurant industry).
There is a third way. Perhaps it is the restaurant industry itself that may be stuck in the old model of trying to amass impressive wine lists along with impressive food lists in order to be successful. There are only so many Tour d’Argents and French Laundries in the world that can pull off lists with DRC, Rousseau and Screaming Eagles in the cellar. With the current Boomer/wine fanatic generation fading into history, it might be good to look at the more casual vibe that the generation like my kids represent. They are happy with Saraya and A Mano like places, that encourage BYO as a model…
Given PA restaurant wine prices wind up at 4x retail it’s no wonder people seek byob.
The most quoted reason for the prevalence of byob in Philly is the cost of a liquor license. I never really bought that because, in general, NJ liquor licenses can be much more expensive. The primary factor is the wholesale cost of alcohol in PA. Licensees pay retail less some marginal discount, like the sales tax rate. You’re right the inventory overhead, storage costs and extra personnel needed for a beverage program increase the cost dramatically. Byob’s rent older, smaller and cheaper spaces. CA and Philly both have long byob histories. CA due to the wine industry and people’s interest in wine. Philly thanks to the state store system designed to discourage consumption of alcohol (historically, today they’re like any other second rate liquor outlet).
Collingswood, NJ is an interesting byob example. A dry town that allows byob near Philly. It had a number of decent restaurants that encourage byob, I don’t recall paying corkage.
I haven’t been back to Philly in about 8 years, have the corkage fees increased at byob’s. It used to be $1 or $2 a stem if they charged. The byob scene in Pittsburgh is pretty much limited to “ethnic” restaurants.
Long winded way of pointing out that byob, and corkage, are based mostly on local practice and the culture of a place.
Just remember that when you address this issue, you should mention that not only are you ITB, but the B in your ITB is to sell variations on your idea to the hospitality industry, so you have a very specific economically loaded horse in the race. At least most of the rest of us who are not ITB, wine collectors/afficionados, have an obvious interest in allowing BYO or having a low corkage. You economic interest is the opposite, or ay least appears to be from the information that I can glean about your company.
From the perspective of someone who worked in some very popular wine-centric restaurants in New York and went from a pretty liberal corkage policy (no stated max number of bottles, $45 (I think), corkage waived with purchases), to a hard 2-bottle/table limit at a higher price ($65 by 2019, no waiving), the answer is simple, and disappointing:
We wanted to do wine service right, and I think most who did visit agree that we did, despite not being a fancy, big restaurant. Having a corkage policy that inspired people to come and also buy of the list was part of that. But as our reputation grew, the generous policy was abused by people (who should know better). “Wine VIPs” would show up with bags full of decades old bottles that needed chilling, decanting, rounds of glassware (Zaltos of course), linger forever etc. As nice as it is to be known for good wine service, if 6 guys show up unannounced with 2 bottles each that need top level service, every decanters and stem in the house - it does drag the whole restaurant down. It doesn’t really matter how nice the wine is or if they pour generous pours for the sommelier, the rest of the staff and tables is getting shafted.
My personal horror story was putting down 180 stems on a single ten-top, serving 18 bottles that were 20-50 years old, while I was the lone sommelier working a 200-guest evening. Sure, the wines were fantastic but I can’t remember a single one, I was so stressed and I wasn’t much use to the rest of the team, or 90% of the dining room. I was wrecked. Also, imagine being the glass polisher who’s there hours after service ends working a really thankless task (who by the way, cannot take part in tips)…
Another thing to consider: At another restaurant, in our first year of business we replaced Zaltos for over $20,000. Was a majority broken by BYOers? Probably not, but trust me when I say that a vast proportion of breakage happened during big wine dinners where guests have multiple glasses in front of them (and get hammered). We also had two full-time glass polishers - there’s a cost to that. And again, those polishers don’t count as front of house employees - not eligible for tips.
If I ever get into the restaurant business again, here’s how I’d formulate a corkage policy:
Also, I saw another thread recently where someone was upset about not being comped the corkage fee because he poured the sommelier a glass. 1. In most cases, sommeliers can’t make that call. 2. Most wine brought in as corkage is terrible, and it comes at a time cost. The number of times I’ve had to stand at a table pretending to be interested in hearing about someone’s wine collection while trying not to barf swallowing down a “generous pour” of The Prisoner. yeah…
Sorry to be verbose, and I realize my perspective above relates only to a very rarified strata of the wine business as a whole (but relevant to the OP’s post).
BYO-ers come in all shapes and sizes. By volume, most are innocuous and unfortunately ill-informed (bringing in terrible wine that along with the corkage fee ends up costing them more than I could have served them something good). A sizeable minority is annoying and cheap (I’ve seen people drink their corked bottles rather than buying something off the list, as a principle) but ultimately harmless. The wine lovers are for the most part wonderful, generous with pours, tips and purchasing if their bottles are flawed or to complement the meal. Wine lovers in a crowd is where the real trouble tends to materialize, unfortunately.
At the end of the day, if you want to be a “good BYOer”:
Things we will never know in Quebec… Here it’s pretty simple: either a restaurant is BYO (it cannot sell any alcohol) or regular (customers cannot bring in any alcohol). As you can guess, BYO restaurants charge a lot more for the food and tend not to be as good (there were a few exceptions but they closed shop). And, there are a lot less BYO than regular restaurants (economics and permits availability). Different model, different issues.
arvid - thank you so much for your contributions here.
for those that don’t know him, arvid is perhaps the smartest, most genuine hospitality professional i know. his knowledge of service and wine is immense and his opinions on the matter should be given the most possible weight.
because everything here gets parsed to hell, i’m happy to divulge that i consider arvid a friend.
jay - my strong incentive personally and financially is for restaurants and the wine industry to prosper. corkage is completely irrelevant to that, without qualification. not a rounding error, irrelevant.
Thank you Arvid for a series of very informative posts. From personal experience of dining out a lot in NYC (including at Legacy in days long gone) most of what you say seems generally consistent with my experiences - be a considerate guest, don’t be cheap and communicate, and things should generally be fine. If that’s a mischaracterization of your posts, that’s on me.
As to the larger point (and this is not a response to Arvid), the “corkage is completely irrelevant” and “therefore the only logical conclusion is to have none” positions haven’t been successfully reconciled from my perspective. That doesn’t mean restaurants must offer it, but as with everything in hospitality (or any other customer facing business), it’s a sliding scale of what services a business is willing to offer customers it wants.
You’ve clearly started from that proposition and argued it as a foregone conclusion, here and in other threads. But what if corkage or some form of BYO is relevant to the future of wine and dining in America, or can be? If it isn’t relevant and you want the restaurant and wine industry to prosper, what is the alternative? Minute, algorithmically determined price and inventory adjustments? There could be money in that for someone but it doesn’t sound like much of a game-cahnger.
The current situation is, by and large, trash. Who in their right mind wants to buy the wines offered at most restaurants at the prices they are being offered? Only those who are ignorant of the situation IMO. Sure, there are exceptions, but they are rare. So how do restaurants manage to have a decent wine program offering interesting wines that are ready to drink at reasonable prices? Maybe they don’t have to, and it just is what it is, but I don’t think that bodes particularly well for the future of wine and dining. Seems a good plan for people, especially younger people, to eschew wine when they go out to eat. I don’t see much positive growth for the wine industry in the status quo of American dining. I guess it’s good news for Santa Margharita and Caymus though.