Wine List Out of Stocks - 86 the Turley

[KatieLoeb]

So Mark - you jumped right in, but you didn't tell us what the usual practice is at Citronelle.  Care to share your protocol?

Simple. The captain is told by the maitre d' who the host is. The menus are presented and the host is asked if he/she would like the wine list. The host is then the one who either accepts the list or delegates. My list, though fairly large, is pretty straightforward: the first half is white wine, the second half is red wine. I am also a maniac about keeping the list up to date. I print pages almost daily to reflect new products, out of stocks and vintgage/price changes, so that most common ritual I find in virtually every restaurant I dine in, that of the waiter returning to tell me my choice is not available almost never happens in my establishment. If the wine is on the list, I have it. Most people never notice this small fact, but to me, it is very important.

Mark:

If I were to have the good fortune of being a regular at your establishment, I would most certainly notice that fact. I'm equally anal retentive about wine lists and after dinner spirit lists. There are occasional complaints that the menu paper is expensive or whatever, but my attitude is it's more expensive to piss customers off or to have product taking up valuable and precious storage space while the product that isn't on the list yet gathers dust.

[bloviatrix]

So Mark - you jumped right in, but you didn't tell us what the usual practice is at Citronelle.  Care to share your protocol?

Simple. The captain is told by the maitre d' who the host is. The menus are presented and the host is asked if he/she would like the wine list. The host is then the one who either accepts the list or delegates. My list, though fairly large, is pretty straightforward: the first half is white wine, the second half is red wine. I am also a maniac about keeping the list up to date. I print pages almost daily to reflect new products, out of stocks and vintgage/price changes, so that most common ritual I find in virtually every restaurant I dine in, that of the waiter returning to tell me my choice is not available almost never happens in my establishment. If the wine is on the list, I have it. Most people never notice this small fact, but to me, it is very important.

Mark:

If I were to have the good fortune of being a regular at your establishment, I would most certainly notice that fact. I'm equally anal retentive about wine lists and after dinner spirit lists. There are occasional complaints that the menu paper is expensive or whatever, but my attitude is it's more expensive to piss customers off or to have product taking up valuable and precious storage space while the product that isn't on the list yet gathers dust.

I wish more places would update their wine lists on a regular basis. In the past few months I have been in several places that haven't had the wine I ordered. In one case I had to choose 3 different bottles before I chose one that they actually had in stock. It's just bad business sense. And a really big peeve of mine.

Edited January 18, 2004 by bloviatrix (log)

[Craig Camp]

On another thread the situation concerning out of stocks on restaurant wine lists has come up. In these days of computer printed wine lists is there an excuse for extensive out of stock selections? Is there a bait-and-switch issue by restaurants just trying to "look" like they have a more extensive wine list than they actually have?

[Fat Guy]

At some point perhaps every restaurant will get with the program and ditch the printed wine list altogether. Once the price comes down, the technology improves a bit, and customers become more familiar with the notion of paperless solutions, more restaurants will I'm sure adopt the eWine Book (in use at Aureole) and similar technologies. These handheld digital lists are wirelessly connected to inventory and reflect stock up to the nanosecond. They're also searchable by any number of criteria (variety, region, etc.).

[Mark Sommelier]

At some point perhaps every restaurant will get with the program and ditch the printed wine list altogether. Once the price comes down, the technology improves a bit, and customers become more familiar with the notion of paperless solutions, more restaurants will I'm sure adopt the eWine Book (in use at Aureole) and similar technologies. These handheld digital lists are wirelessly connected to inventory and reflect stock up to the nanosecond. They're also searchable by any number of criteria (variety, region, etc.).

Charlie Palmer has a restaurant here that uses an eWinelist. I've played with it a few times and personally believe that the technology is not quite there yet.

[Mark Sommelier]

On another thread the situation concerning out of stocks on restaurant wine lists has come up. In these days of computer printed wine lists is there an excuse for extensive out of stock selections? Is there a bait-and-switch issue by restaurants just trying to "look" like they have a more extensive wine list than they actually have?

I have heard stories of restaurants pumping up their lists with dream bottles to win dubious awards that certain wine publications sell...OOPS.....bestow. The sad fact is that the majority of restaurants don't have someone who knows or cares that much about wine. Add to that the bean counter mentality most places use toward wine where the cost of every wine on the list from cheapest to most expensive is multiplied by 3.33333333, and selections are made at the lowest common denominator or chosen by committee. The easy (and fun) part of my job is working the floor at night in the restaurant. The work part consists of managing the 7,000 bottle inventory, maintaining the winelist, searching for new wines and devising plans to move inventory. The payoff for the restaurant is the P&L statement at the end of the year.