probably, yes.
This is an interesting point and echoes my experience; I’m wondering how much is based on the level of wine interest among WB members vs regional differences. I recently moved to the CT suburbs, but I spent the majority of my ~15 post college years in Manhattan, and I don’t have much memory of noticing other people bringing wine, and no friends ever brought wine to group dinners. Obvious caveat that none of us were particularly into wine (yet), and I wasn’t looking for it at other tables, so may just not have noticed. But I suspect it’s also just not as much part of the culture in Manhattan (again, setting aside the case of bringing special / expensive wine). Some of it may just be that people in Manhattan don’t have room to keep large wine inventories at home, but I also think it’s just less casual.
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virtue signaling as a pejorative is exclusively used by folks that feel the need to justify their behavior. if you find my thoughts on the matter as such, know that they’re based on real world factors and data. if you have an alternative take, please endeavor to bring those facts and data to the argument.
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related to the above, there’s a shocking level of both ignorance and naivete in this thread. the restaurant business model is absolutely NOT about “building long term value.” if you succeed at it, you may get there, but it’s a cash business. you don’t have equity holders that are betting on profits or growth down the road that are financing you near-term losses. rent is due first of the month, labor is a huge issue, and then fixed costs. without a lot of cash in the bank, you need to get to even very quickly. “profit” in this industry is around 7%, if you’re really good at it. you have a very defined physical space that you can only usually exploit a few hours / day; lunch and dinner. at 2 am, you’re still paying rent but not generating cash. the entire idea of happy hour is a result of this reality. if you’re booked for the night, that means you need to do everything possible to maximize revenue per minute during that time period. if you have excess inventory, you need to do everything possible to get more people in the door. it’s common to deal with both of these realities within the same week.
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on tipping: tipping well is certainly a nice thing to do, but realize that (a) this money cannot be shared with non-tipped workers (certain specific and rare exception apply), and (b) does not go into the revenue bucket needed to manage the business model outlined in 2 above.
It kinda depends on your spot and your business model; building a clientele is incredibly important for a restaurant because repeat diners are often the ones with higher check averages who will bring friends, clients, etc who will hopefully then become repeat guests. There are so many restaurants and options for folks to dine out that a solid support base is crucial unless you’re fast casual or whatnot. But yes, there’s also the double-edged sword of restaurants generally operating month-to-month (and even that is stretching it sometimes) and needing a constant cashflow one week to pay next week’s bills.
Also, count me in on the phrase “virtue signalling” - usually employed by those without much virtue of their own to indicate sentiments like “I was thoughtful of someone else today” are personally irksome to them.
Most people don’t bring in wine because they don’t have a wine collection they’re sitting on for years and years. Once you’ve brought in wine after a few times, the unsettling or awkward feeling will go away. Instead you’ll be very excited that the wine you bought 3 years ago can finally be opened and enjoyed. Plus the extra $20 -$50 you spent on corkage factors into the amount you’ll be tipping your server. More money for the server AND you got to enjoy your wine.
What do folks here think about diners who eat at restaurants but only order water, iced tea, coffee, or soda as their beverage?
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Consume whatever you want.
When I was a busboy in high school I worked at a semi sketchy Las Vegas pub. People would regularly “make their own lemonade” with lemons and sugar packets. That was awful.
One of the things I really like about corkage is when we go out to a nice restaurant with civilian friends.
If you don’t bring wine, then you face this awkward situation: (1) they know you’re “the wine guy” and expect you to pick the wines, (2) you often don’t know what their comfort level is as far as cost of wine off the list and it’s not always an easy thing to ask, (3) if you buy something inexpensive off a restaurant list it may be pretty bad, and then you look stupid plus you also are stuck drinking lousy wine, but (4) if you pick something better, they may be surprised or uncomfortable with splitting the bill for that.
All that is avoided by bringing your wines. You get to enjoy good wines, your friends often appreciate you for being generous, you have no stress as far as asking them to absorb the cost, everybody wins. Sure, you in a sense had to buy everyone’s wine that night, and people rarely (in my experience) offer to adjust the bill or anything to reflect that, but I think most of us are okay with that when it means sharing with friends and given how well it works out overall.
This is a complete tangent from the Corkage question, but since we’re talking about it…
I guess that’s why there are so many great chefs, but unable to run successful businesses? They’re not about building long term value? that’s probably why they fail long term.
Absolute the reality of the industry, no disagreeing there… but note that
- every player in the restaurant industry faces (more or less) the same set of rules, but some succeed, while others don’t… why? Alos many other companies/industries pay for rent at 2am, when not generating cash, and there are success and failures there as well?
- you try to maximize revenue every minute during that time period is short sighted, but it’s easy and tangible to look at short sighted numbers. Isn’t that why there are good and bad customer care? A business with the “I need to make that $x per minute NOW”, but loses a customer that would have increased your average $/min in the long run is bound to fail.
- If you have excess inventory u do everything possible to get people in the door - RIGHT, isn’t that why a restaurant offers Corkage? I’m sure it’s not b/c the restaurant owner loves you, or your wine.
It might not be the ‘nice thing to say’, but the reality is… it’s a business. Cokage is part of the business model, as is many other things, and the success of the restaurant depends on the owner/manager of the restaurant 1. developing a success business model, and 2. executing effectively on that model.
vir·tue sig·nal·ing
noun
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.
Since I am one of the folks who used the term “virtue signaling,” I’ll take this bait.
When I use the term “virtue signaling,” I’m using it as defined here. It has nothing to do with some “need to justify my behavior” — that doesn’t even make sense. I have already “justified my behavior” to myself, just as I do nearly every single time I consciously choose to do something.
I could go through this thread and point-out the numerous examples of virtue signaling therein, but I’m not particularly inclined to do so, as I’m not interested in starting a bunch of fights, particularly when I actually agree with much of what I would be quoting (agree with the point, just not the manner in which it was made). Anyone else who wants to go through the thread, however, with the above definition in mind, is free to do so and I bet multiple examples will jump off the screen.
I don’t think about them. A lot of people people don’t, or can’t or no longer drink alcohol. Now, if they are the same that ask for more (free) bread and split an appetizer and a main, then tip poorly, I am not a fan.
It seems to me (would love to hear differing opinions, if they’re out there) that a restaurant would make more money having a table ordering corkage than they would a table ordering any of the cheap (if not free) beverages I detailed in my question. I do recognize the costs attendant to glassware breakage, service, and cleaning, and assume this is part and parcel of the corkage fee. Additionally, many folks, such as myself, frequently bring their own stemware when ordering corkage (and additionally handle the opening and pouring of the wine, too).
And, I know it’s been said many times, but it continually gets conveniently ignored: many restaurants that have corkage on their menu would lose customers if they didn’t offer corkage. So, if there’s nothing wrong with the diner that simply orders water, iced tea, coffee, or soda as their beverage, AND the restaurant has corkage on their menu, AND the customer abides by the corkage policy without complaint, AND said corkage-ordering customer otherwise wouldn’t be ordering wine off the menu (or, potentially, not patronizing the restaurant at all), (AND, sometimes, the corkage-ordering customer literally handles all wine aspects of wine service, including glassware) please explain to me how this corkage-ordering customer has done anything “wrong” or has somehow “punished” the server or restaurant. ![[scratch.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/42a16863a8714da3c1604419e3eb9206bb87aa50.gif "scratch"){kind=small}
Well, the question was meant to make you think about them now. Do you think those customers are somehow have bad morals, or are engaging in “bad” or “punishing” behavior?
Now, if they are the same that ask for more (free) bread and split an appetizer and a main, then tip poorly, I am not a fan.
Completely different topic.
If you are comparing BYO to tee totalers, then not necessarily, as the BYOers take much more time at the table (same restauranteur who told me that doesn’t serve espresso (just coffee) as he felt expresso drinkers linger more than just coffee drinkers). So maybe more money per table on a Tuesday but not on a Saturday.
Also dependant on the amount of the corkage, if it’s $20 or $35 or $50.
Of course, this is based on normal times.
No, they are nothing negative. I know enough restaurant owners to know that they want every single seat in the house filled. Sure, wine drinkers willing to drop hundreds of dollars on a bottle or bottles are great. I also know people that will drink something else if the wine list sucks. Nothing wrong with them, either.
I think a lot of people are over thinking this. If a restaurant says you can bring whatever bottle of wine you want as long as you pay $[] corkage, bring whatever you want and pay the corkage. If the restaurants says you can’t bring something on the list, don’t bring something that’s on the list. If the restaurant allows you to not pay corkage if the wine you bring is from a certain region, feel free to bring wine from that region and not pay corkage.
When I was younger, in school (little money), and didn’t like wine, sometimes on dates, I’d bring a cheap $20ish bottle of sparkling wine (sometimes from the grocery store [oh no!]) to dinner because I couldn’t afford to spend $100 on a bottle of wine. The restaurants never said anything, never gave us subpar service because of this, etc., and we enjoyed our dinner with our cheap, but fun, sparkling wine.
So if you were to take your own, would you tip based on a wine cost of 1300 or 150?
This is a great post. Have been there.
I have only limited knowledge of the US scene and I’m no expert on restaurant financing, but my guess is that restaurants make little or no profit on the food, and most profit comes from wine sales. My understanding is that target wine markups here are around list prices around 3.5 x the KGBO price (which includes a whack of taxes).
It’s always seems a perverse business model to me (selling your, presumably, core product - food - and relying on ancillary product - liquor -for profit. My sense is that in Europe food provinces are higher and wine prices lower.
So far, BYO & corkage have seemed a reasonable alternative. I would say that in a restaurant that I really like and am happy to support, paying over the odds for a bottle off the list of a wine that I do not have at home and better yet is new to me, and will be well presented and served and matches the food seems not unreasonable.
And yet… CV19 may upend this model. A lot of restaurants here are now selling take out or delivered meal packages along with wines priced much closer to retail cost.
Will anyone go back to paying 3.5 x after this?
I terms of the original question about corkage per se, I think the bases have been pretty well covered.