Come to Portland; restaurant prices below 2x retail for days (sometimes <1x)
Amazing; did that really happen? Have to say, after visiting once I decided I never wanted to go again
The worst i’ve seen is in Iceland last week - a Casillero Del Diablo (i believe it’s $7-$8), was on a list for about $100 USD.
Strangely they had a Boillinger bubbly for about 2x retail… so it’s all over the place… but that was shocking.
We go over this subject every 5 years or so. We have very good friends who paid a fortune to get a “formal” education in restaurant management. They opened an Italian themed restaurant with reasonable food prices and marked up their wine four times wholesale that was a key point in their schooling. Couldn’t convince them to lower their prices. After 10 years they finally brought their prices down to 2.5 or 3 times wholesale. They immediately made more money selling wine versus the $10 corkage fee they charged and everybody took advantage of.
If you consider the restaurant and location wine prices should mimic or compare to meal pricing. The French Laundry has a very high mark up and a pretty high corkage fee, all aligned with their food and food pricing. There are a ton of people who have and will spend the money. For every one of us here bitching about the pricing there are ten people who can’t be bothered by such trivial matters and are regulars at the French Laundry. Consider what other restaurants in the class of the French Laundry that these people eat at regularly.
At least those restaurants who can/do offer corkage fee alternatives allow us to enjoy both food and wine.
Wow!!!
Good for those people who don’t bother with such trivial matters! If it makes you happy… Cheers to them.
If you been had, yes that’s a good way to look at it.
Paid close to retail for a nice burgundy at Clos Maggiore, it was cheaper than your Malbec.
Uh . . . actually, I think you have the ratio backward. But it only takes a handful of price-insensitive customers to sustain a handful of high-end restaurants.
+1
An economist would say pricing is what the market will bear. If people are willing to pay, they will, and be happy to get hosed.
Gray asked what the normal markup is. In the UK it’s usually 3 times retail, but in top/famous/expensive restaurants like Chiltern Firehouse it’s usually more.
Comparing the retail price against the USA isn’t comparing like for like. Prices in the US don’t include tax. Tax is included in wine prices here and tax is steep. There is a tax per bottle which is about £2.40, plus duty when imported from a non-EU country without free-tax arrangement. To the cost of the wine, wine tax and duty is applied VAT at 20%.
The only UK stockist I can find of the 2016 vintage of that wine on winesearcher.com is Latin Wine Online which has it for £27.49 incl. tax
Gray says he paid $130. According to xe.com $130 equates to £104.60 at the time of posting.
That’s more than I’d pay for such a wine, but it’s a little over 4 times retail. And the tip is included in the prices so the traditional USA additional 20% wasn’t paid. (was it?)…
And the US dollar is worth so much more against the pound at the current time. OTOH, I’ll be in the US next month, and I’ll be lucky to afford to dine at Denny’s. 
(BTW - the ubiquity of people checking restaurant prices on smartphones has led to restaurant wine lists full of labels produced just for restaurants so diners can’t see the wine they are drinking is available at the supermarket for a fraction of the cost)
Amazing
I wonder if this is done in the US