Regarding a venue for an offline, are there any pros or cons re: having the venue at a home or a restaurant?
Many.
Here are some thoughts:
Home–more personal, you call the shots versus an external location, feels warm and you can make it what you want. Downside? Food. If you want to go hard, you need to find a chef to come in and do the meal in your kitchen, build that relationship. Or, you cater in and split the costs, which is easy but not as involved or rewrding as doing say a 5-course tasting menu. You have some clean up concerns, may be small given your event size.
Restaurant–cost. Most want 85-125 now for a multi-course lineup. Some may tell you they do better or have a better place at lower cost. Perhaps. I’m just telling you what recent numbers telll me from doing/seeing these. Corkage? Maybe you have that folded into your all-in cost but it doesn’t have any impact if you do it at Home. Cleanup. None! You can leave that behind to the Restaurant. Might be less comfortable, as at home it seems more relaxed, plus as the host you don’t have to be concerned about drinking and spitting/driving.
Some random thoughts. I like, and do both formats, as they are both good and I really enjoy doing these. In the end, it’s what you and the group want to accomplish and want to spend.
Yes, the issues are many and the weight of each will vary.
We do a lot of both. We like to host, have a good amount of space, and my wife is a master of cooking for large groups. So we’ve assembled the tables, chairs, stems, etc to make it doable. But even if one has the will, a large group puts a pretty big burden on the hosts, especially with no caterer. If you don’t need a full meal, that largest burden becomes easier. But if there really isn’t one person with a good spot and willing to take the turn at benefitting the group by hosting, then the go-out defult is better. As FM said the biggest benefit is the cost. It is getting harder and harder to find establishments that want 12-40 winos toting in copius numbers of bottles. I would agree that it ends up running at least $85 per for a full meal. Most of the restaurants around here that typically have $50-70 per person dinners just don’t want any part of it, especially on a Fri-Sa-Sun, so even if one is willing to pay the $85 options are not easy.
The plus to going out is that it’s just easier. Show-up, pay, and go home. No facilities or utenisls needed, no cooking, an no clean-up. If the group is eight or fewer there is also a pretty decent range of cuisine that one can try. So I think the go out is more feasible for that sized group than it is a bigger group. The other drawback to the go out is that often the table can’t be occupied for the whole night. Lots of places want to get two turns so many times the table is not yours for more than 2 1/2 hrs.
price point can get high even at home. we hired a cook, two servers and furniture, as well as extra tables to forty, and associated flatware etc. when all was said and done, probably more cost per person than eating out… .but it was comfortable, warm and convenient. Truly enjoyable.
The monthly tasting group I run does both. I prefer home because it is much more relaxed, free flowing and comfortable. Since we typically do it with the host declaring the wine theme and providing the entree and the rest supplying pot luck it is also cheaper and nobody is put out too much.
I prefer a restaurant just because I hate dealing with cleanup and gathering food at my house. I’ve done a lot of events at my house and each time I tell myself no more. Washing glassware sucks a whole bunch
Thanks for your thoughts, Frank, John, Scott, Joe, and Charlie.
We have done two major weekend-long events with people from the Cellar Tracker forum.
Thu night has been Burgundy Thursday dinner at my place. Weeks of cleaning and prep, purchases of plates etc, nightmare cleanup–(NOT for the next event, I’m planning a restaurant).
The group stays at the same local inn which is walking distance to restaurants. We do afternoon tastings at the inn and dinners on Fri and Sat. Top Charleston restaurants won’t touch this for under $100 pp; they are already filling seats. A restaurant with a private room is preferable but they can make more money from a wedding event (since we bring our own wine) so many restaurants aren’t interested. We try to plan our event the week after restaurant week in hopes that local restaurants will be more interested in hosting a crowd in what should be a slower week.
Strongly consider making the event BYOS (stems) if you host at your place.
Charlie are you providing all of the food, stemware, etc… Truly 100% hosting? Then yes, I can see wanting to go to a restaurant. Too much clean up afterwards for certain. That’s why we do “pot luck”. We also tell everybody to bring their own stems and they clean their own. Everybody has 1 pot to clean, a few glasses to clean, etc…when they get home.
I prefer a home with themed potluck or shared take-out, and BYO stems.
Barry,
I can’t really help you as I’m not in any wine groups. But in my experience my very best wines generally taste a lot better at home, while more modest bottles can sometimes be surprisingly good in a restaurant. I do occasionally attend off-lines thanks to the generosity of others and while the food and wines are good separately they often don’t match as well as I would like even when the menu is tailored to the theme.
Another advantage to a tasting at home: Many times a bottle will start a discussion that leads to going to one’s cellar for a different bottle or type of wine.
Yes, provide all the stemware/plates/utensils. Even the times I buy food to bring over it’s a bit of a hassle cleaning up everything. When I cook it’s the worst when it comes to cleaning ugh. The only reason I do it at home is because our dinners always last 3+ hours, so at my house it can go late into the night