Increased corkage post-COVID?

WINE TALK
41

I appreciate your consideration regardless. When it gets too much for me, I just hole up in my cellar and drown my sorrows in a vertical of Romanee-Conti while writing Haiku about the hoi polloi. [highfive.gif]

(Not really, I wish I had a cellar of RC. Just a little needling for the usual suspects.)

42

I’m new here - really new- and I have learned so much from these boards already. One thing that has surprised me is this issue that I have now seen in a few threads. I honestly had no idea there was so much resistance to corkage. Looking at the sort of bottles people are often talking about here, $35-50 (the OP’s example) seems pretty trifling in the scheme of things when you may be bringing, let’s say at $100 bottle marked at $250 at the restaurant. For that $50, you save $100 and the restaurant has lost a chance to make $200 (though they retain the possibility of selling that bottle for $250 later). Clearly, the numbers are more striking the pricier the bottle is. Of course, restaurants are going to charge something. As I said, I am really a newbie here, but I can’t understand why this $35-50 is such a big deal. Though I would completely understand if you choose to find a restaurant that had a no corkage policy, if this matters to you.

If I am missing something here, please explain it to me.

43

Appreciate your comment. Actually, just to clarify, my OP wasn’t really geared towards corkage specifically, but more expressing surprise that they were increasing prices during this unstable time. I had expected this to be a “buyers market” with restaurants doing everything they can to woo customers with great deals. I was hoping for more comments about what others’ local restaurant policies looked like, not such a lively discussion about whether we should be bringing wine into restaurants…

44
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While I will order wine off the menu to support the restaurants, part of the problem is the way restaurants have priced wines (well prior to this pandemic). I think restaurants overreached when they started to go to 3x + retail. It makes for a really difficult decision for someone who does well, but cannot just drop $150 on a decent bottle of wine every weekend when we go to dinner.

46

Great to run into you again my friend! [cheers.gif]

47

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48

Have not noticed in Sonoma County but I would not even consider bringing my own wine right now (to eat outside as that is the only option) with restaurants suffering so badly. Will gladly drink simpler wines to help the restaurant stay afloat and will look forward to corkage in the future (if the restaurants survive). I have many friends in the business and it is carnage and I feel horrible for the industry. People who spent their entire life building a business based on hospitality and can’t offer it as they have and are at risk losing everything with no finite end date. Not that this is limited too restaurants, but we are talking about corkage.

49

I think increased corkage should not be a surprise. Eliminating corkage would be a mistake. You’re in effect telling some people not to come to your restaurant. It’s running under the assumption you would be missing wine sales but how many restaurants have every table making a bottle purchase from their list? There’s room for compromise on both sides of the corkage debate. People want to go out again and people running restaurants want to host them. Quibbling around this small issue doesn’t seem useful.

50

Thanks for clarifying. I suspect that in the case of that restaurant, it is simply a case of trying to maximize revenue in an extraordinarily challenging time by encouraging wine list buys and they are taking a calculated gamble that increased wine sales will make up for any lost business due to lost patronage from increased corkage fees. Presumably, they have checked to see what their local competitors are doing, but you’ll know your market best.

I do appreciate you explaining what you hoped the thread would be about, but I also understand why it became something else. Corkage fees, whether waived, decreased or increased, seem a bit incidental to the larger existential threat to the entire restaurant industry right now. Corkage won’t matter if there are no restaurants left in business. And while I know that will not happen, the losses will be immense.

51

In fairness, I think the use of “money grab” in the OP set the tone of the thread.

52

Is a community dedicated to fine wine really so ridiculously sensitive to money? I would conjure every single person here is in the 1% of the world. Maybe we’re all just so ashamed of our privilege, we feel the need to shame and demean others? Does that make us feel better about our success?

53

Not me, Andrew. I work in the wine business. Often working closely with restaurants and those selling wine to them, so my perspective is coming from seeing many of my business partners and friends seriously struggling.

Does my calling out the use of the term “money grab” as provocative really count as shaming and demeaning others?

54

No not at all. I was referring to the tone of the thread.

55

The restaurant sector has been hit hard during lockdowns all around the world. Those with the fortitude to keep serving us wine nerds, and allowing us to BYO can ask for a reasonable corkage I reckon.

56

Andrew, some of the reactions were a little strong, but there’s a contingent here of people ITB or who are otherwise sympathetic to restaurants. Combine that with people’s generally more heightened sensitivity with things related to Covid, and it’s easy for things to go sideways over a provocative comment.

57

Curious that you should ask that when your original post is so sensitive to money.

58

Yep

59

I don’t really understand why you don’t understand the tone of the thread, which you actually created. I found the money grab comment offensive as well, but chose not to enter the thread because I didn’t like the attitude you created based upon that comment. If you don’t understand that it’s instead a grab for a life-ring, perhaps you may want to re-examine your perspective. Certainly, you have the right to your opinion, but don’t be surprised if that opinion creates strong reactions.

60

Not really fair to attack OP for comments that are not in this thread, or over their avatar either.

That’s like Squires