What’s with absurd markups at restaurants?!

So I was born with an over developed cheap bone on both arms. That’s the caveat. But I generally know what wines wholesale for due to my time as a volunteer shop employee, and I find the restaurant markups embarrassing.

A restaurant I really like, Bresca, has a silly list with 400% markups of rather typical en Vogue wines. They have recently raised corkage to $45…

We have an extremely generous friend who has offered to treat us at the Inn at Little Washington. I browsed all 90 pages of the wine list and had a hard time finding wines even near the 400% threshold?! The absolutely silly $95 corkage is enough to dissuade most I’m sure. But seriously…can’t you even sneak in a couple at 300% markup just for the “in the know” crowd?

Broader point is that I want to be a good paying customer, but it’s tough for a wine guy to buy wine st the restaurant he loves due to these extreme markups.

Yeah, I get it, but this is not the time to take shots at restaurants when they’re struggling to find workers and to survive (another) COVID winter. Most are barely hanging on so let’s not kick them when they’re down.

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this thread will be terrific. 10/10.

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[smileyvault-ban.gif]

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The way you get people in the door isn’t to gouge them with ridiculous prices.

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C’mon man. Didn’t you learn from my thread last year? The restaurant apologists are small in number but loud and obnoxious. [head-bang.gif]

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You can buy a pork chop for $5 so why pay the ridiculous mark up of 10 x at a restaurant?

You can buy a bottle of beer for $2 so why pay the outrageous price of $10 in a bar?

I fully understand the economics and business realities of 300 to 400% mark ups on wine, and happy to pay from a well chosen selection. What irks me is when it’s not well chosen and I am forced to pay $300 for something that’s pretty ordinary.

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If you don’t like the wine prices, you can bring your own (for high end wine is $95 really that much?) or go elsewhere. Seems an easy choice to me. There are definitely places I don’t go because I don’t love the list or think it’s overpriced - you can also make that choice. It seems to work for the restaurant - they don’t have to cater people who understand what mark-ups on wines are. If they make money, they’ll proceed on that basis.

These sorts of threads come around every so often, from both angles. Last year, someone lost his shit because people suggested $40 was reasonable corkage at a very high end restaurant and then claimed people forced him to buy off the list (it was odd). More often people just complain corkage/wine lists are too expensive.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand your frustration - it’s annoying to feel ripped off. But then why go? Can’t be the only game in town. :slight_smile:

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There are a few wine places where I live that do a mix of mark ups.

For example for their house red bourgogne, they’ll charge a >4x mark up, but on higher end wines from Tremblay or Liger Belair, they’re often very reasonable and charge below the ‘market price’, but still a 2x mark up on their allocation price. There’s also a place that does EP or close to EP pricing for various back vintages of bordeaux 1st, 2nd and 3rd growths

I find that this tends to be quite fair since it encourages wine lovers to go for the harder to find and better wines at a price below the ‘market price’ but where the restaurant/bar still makes a sensible absolute $ margin on the wine. The restaurant/bar can then make the bulk of their fatter margins from the normal person that just wants a glass of house red

Dan, just curious, is it 400% of typical retail? Or wholesale? If the former, yeah, that’s quite high.

Some restaurants for sure take particular advantage of popular names. See, e.g., markups of Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio during the aughts, or Veuve.

I dont like it either, which is why I bring wine most of the time. think of your 400% markup, and then think of how much money you’re saving by bringing a $100 wine in and adding their $95 corkage to it.

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I took a 1 minute look at the Inn at Little Washington list. There are plenty of great options at fair prices. Some Italian wines at retail or below retail prices.

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Obsess much? I recall a very different conversation, but, hey it’s your reality!

Buy fresh, local ingredients and learn to cook them properly.

90% of restaurant visits become completely unnecessary.

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I defer to you on Italian pricing, but there are also a couple very attractively priced French wines as well - close to retail for some.

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I see a lot of 2x markups on that Inn at Little Washington list, which seems reasonable. Also several thoughtfully chosen less expensive but high quality wines at under $100/bottle with the markup, which to me is a sign of a good list

But I have to ask what’s with the aging? Outside of some high end Bordeaux a huge fraction of these wines, including high end Burgundy or Barolo, are less than ten years old. It’s not like this is a new restaurant or anything. It seems to me a restaurant that is supposed to be one of the best in the US shouldn’t be charging you hundreds of dollars a bottle for wines that are not in their proper drinking window

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The biggest rip-off is cakeage.

I seldom it wines off the list for this reason, unless I am in Europe. Somehow, they manage. Maybe because they sell wine to every table

It is much cheaper to bring your own cake. Fuck pastry chefs! Just bring in a Ding Dong and pay the cakeage fee.

Seriously… Duncan Hines is like $1 a box. Throw in some $3 frosting and you feed a family. They probably charge $20 for a few cake crumbles with some fancy raspberry blob smeared across the plate. [snort.gif]

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