Corkage fees

[tommy]

Fat Guy - Of course it's beating the system but the reason why the BYOers want to is that the system is screwy.

agreed. if BYOers are "getting around" or screwing the system, they're only screwing a system that has screwed them and countless others many many times.

[Fat Guy]

To the extent that restaurants are not obligated to allow BYO, but offer it anyway, why should one feel guilty about taking them up on their offer, even if only to save money?

Do you acknowledge a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law?

[cabrales]

Fat Guy:  To the extent that restaurants are not obligated to allow BYO, but offer it anyway, why should one feel guilty about taking them up on their offer, even if only to save money?

I agree with jordyn. A restaurant is, of course, entitled to prohibit BYO, or to set a vey high corkage. Once it permits BYO and establishes a corkage fee, however, it should not complain about its decision, which can be modified (e.g., raising the corkage fee) from time to time as it sees fit. What is problematic about taking a restaurant up on its "offer" with respect to BYO? One is not obligated to order wine (I appreciate wine lovers may disagree with that), and one is certainly not obligated to order very expensive wine.

[Wilfrid]

The flaw in Fat Bloke's argument lies, surely, in a point Professor Plotnicki made earlier. No-one objects if someone takes a table at Daniel for a couple of hours and drinks nothing but water. Plenty of people take meals without wine. Even some eGulleters, sad to say. Now, sure, if everyone did it, restaurants would have to re-think their business plans - very sad, but I don't draw the inference that everyone ought to order wine with their meal.

Food is quite different, because you simply would not be permitted to take a table at Daniel for a couple of hours and dismiss the menu with a shrug. And everybody knows that.

[rich]

Still don't understand why restaurants need to mark-up 300% plus????

Granted many don't pay wine store wholesale prices due to volume, but there's no reason (that I can think of) why such exorbitant mark-ups are necessary.

[jordyn]

To the extent that restaurants are not obligated to allow BYO, but offer it anyway, why should one feel guilty about taking them up on their offer, even if only to save money?

Do you acknowledge a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law?

I do, but I don't see how it's relevant.

Do you mean to imply:

1) Restaurants don't want to offer corkage, but "the law" requires them to?

2) Restaurants don't want to offer corkage, but are somehow tricked into doing it?

3) Restuarants want to offer corkage, but only as a one-time event on your 30th anniversary?

4) Something else that demonstrates I'm missing your point even more completely?

[tommy]

Still don't understand why restaurants need to mark-up 300% plus????

Granted many don't pay wine store wholesale prices due to volume, but there's no reason (that I can think of) why such exorbitant mark-ups are necessary.

because they get away with it. and don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise with nonsense arguments. this could be another thread altogether. the party lines in that discussion would most assuredly be clearly drawn.

[Fat Guy]

Jordyn: Number 3

[Fat Guy]

Tommy/Rich: Okay, next time you open a restaurant you go ahead and maintain a 1200-selection list, a sommelier and assistant sommeliers, etc., at a lower markup. When you go out of business, Plotnicki can buy your cellar at the bankruptcy auction and corkage it for the rest of his life.

[tommy]

Tommy/Rich: Okay, next time you open a restaurant you go ahead and maintain a 1200-selection list, a sommelier and assistant sommeliers, etc., at a lower markup. When you go out of business, Plotnicki can buy your cellar at the bankruptcy auction and corkage it for the rest of his life.

i still don't buy it. i would like to see the numbers illustrated. have you? has anyone?

and before you get going on sommeliers and assistant sommeliers and temp/humidity controled cellars, let us not forget that the majority of restaurants, around this country at least, don't have that level of wine service. but they continue to charge 300% markups on their crappy chardonnay and merlot, and oddly enough are the first ones to look at you funny if you BYO.

[jordyn]

Aha, Fat Guy's last post finally made a light bulb go off in my head.

I'm willing to concede that a restaurant ought to be able to mark up wine in order to cover the cost of their wine program, plus a reasonable profit. So, if that's 300%, fine.

But Steve P and Beachfan don't really need the restaurant's cellar, the sommelier, and the other trappings of the program. They just want someone to open their wine and pour it. They want to be able to opt out of the expensive program and get the bare bones one. They're even willing to pay a reasonble fee for this service.

Fat Guy is probably correct in asserting that if enough people took the BYO route, the wine program as we know it would become untenable. If that were the case, the restaurant would have to consider that maybe such a service were not really demanded by their customers and would have to re-think their offering.

None of this leads me to believe that BYOers are getting a free ride, however. They're just getting a ride in a different class of service, and that happens to suit them very well.

[Edited to remove redundancy.]

[LaNiña]

And they get to drink their wine, that's the point - they get to drink the wine they've cellared and waited to open. And they get to have it with great food.

[cabrales]

What do people consider the minimum retail (i.e., today's wine store) price for a bottle of wine for it to be acceptable to be BYO'd to a place like Craft (or another restaurant that allows BYO)? Would a $100 retail Laville Haut-Brion 1997 suffice? If so, how about a $45-50 bottle (retail) of Chassagne Montrachet or Puligny-Montrachet?

[tommy]

And they get to drink  their wine, that's the point - they get to drink the wine they've cellared and waited to open.  And they get to have it with great food.

it's like bringin a date to a whorehouse.

not really, but that saying just came to mind.

[Fat Guy]

Tommy: I have seen the numbers illustrated at three restaurants, yes. I'm not an accountant, so I suppose I could have been fleeced (sort of the way a car salesman shows you how when he's selling you the car he's only making three cents), but I found the explanations compelling. We have at least one restaurant-accountant who participates on these boards, so maybe he'll chime in (he strikes me as fairly disinterested); and of course we have several restaurateurs. Just a reminder, I've already made the disclaimer that I'm talking about fine-dining establishments with serious wine programs, and I've explained my position regarding restaurants at different levels of the pecking order.

[rich]

Cabby - I don't think the price matters as much as availibility. Naturally if a restaurant has a $25+ corkage fee, there's no reason to bring a $20 bottle of wine.

However if a '97 Latour is on the restaurant's list, I don't think it's proper for the customer to bring one. Granted it will probably be $300+ in the restaurant, but I think that flies in the face of FG's "Spirit of the Law" comment.

For BYO, it's my opinion the bottle should be unavailable at the restaurant.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I think the notion that allowing BYO will bring and end to a restaurants wine program is silly. As we have demonstrated, the BYO person is a unique animal. And you know what, if 50% of the people who wanted to eat at Daniel were to BYO, let them charge a special BYO price for the food to make up their lost profit. We are willing to pay to get it *the way we want it.*

Just remember that I started by saying this is a service issue. Certainly there is a price that every restaurant in the country would offer this service for. I simply do not understand any rationale that says they shouldn't. And to be honest, I don't see bringing your own food to be any different. If I walked into a place with my own Wagyu beef and said "here make this for me," why not? If the chef is up to it, and I am willing to pay the price for the service why should they care? It's like when Cabrales brought those awful, sperm smelling ostrich eggs to the eGullet dinner in London. They figured out a price to charge us to do it. Why can't any inconsistancy from a restaurant's normal operating procedures be reduced to money here?

[Fat Guy]

They want to be able to opt out of the expensive program and get the bare bones one.

And at the same time they want to eat at the restaurant, which can't exist without the expensive program. This is why I place it in the category of free-rider problems.

As I've said above, a special cellar treasure or an anniversary wine or whatever strikes me as unproblematic as an occasional departure from the system. An avid collector will obviously have more such occasions than someone with no cellar to speak of. But I don't believe for a second that the habitual BYO crowd self-limits in this manner.

[Fat Guy]

I simply do not understand any rationale that says they shouldn't. And to be honest, I don't see bringing your own food to be any different.

We know.

[rich]

posted on Jul 31 2002, 10:59 AM

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"I have seen the numbers illustrated at three restaurants"

FG - Without breaking any confidences, aside from the wine, what was the biggest cost factor for the restaurants?

[Fat Guy]

As I recall, it was the cost of carrying the inventory.

Which guy is the accountant? Get him on the line here.

[Wilfrid]

I still can't see why the BYO-er is more worthy of disapprobation than the non-drinker.

[Fat Guy]

So you didn't buy the cheese/dessert/steak argument?

[Steve Plotnicki]

"And at the same time they want to eat at the restaurant, which can't exist without the expensive program. This is why I place it in the category of free-rider problems"

I disagree wholeheartedly with this. The cost of a wine program is just a capital line item on a balance sheet. The amount of the item is based on a projection of how much and what type of wine a restaurant is going to sell. If BYO eats into the program because it reduces projected sales of wine, all you have to do is lower your investment. That's what a restaurant does when it doesn't sell wine for any other reason, why not this one? If business is bad and the average bottle of wine sold goes down in value because people aren't spending the same amount of money on wine or aren't drinking it at all, a restaurant reduces their investment. This isn't any different, although, here the restaurant can make $25-$50 a bottle for the wine *they do not sell.*

I might be simplyfying this but, the issue seems to come down to the fact that restaurants have the ability to make a large capital investment in wine and they try to turn that investment on some reasonable basis to make profit. But nobody forces them to make the investment. Not every restaurant has a killer wine list. In fact many of the top restaurants in town have inferior lists. So it isn't really a matter of have to, it's that they want to. And like I said earlier, why does it matter if they make the extra profit from selling wine or for offering extra services? In fact it's more profitable to offer extra services because there is no investment needed to keep a large celllar of wine.

We have also forgot to mention that BYO customers spend more money on the whole than your average customer. Quite often the "savings" they get on wine goes into things like tasting menus and dishes with more luxurious ingredients.

[tommy]

We have also forgot to mention that BYO customers spend more money on the whole than your average customer. Quite often the "savings" they get on wine goes into things like tasting menus and dishes with more luxurious ingredients.

ah. he finally touches on this again. without any reasonable explanation. oh well.

i agree with everything steve said before this. [shudder]