So what? This is a non sequitur. The business models and pricing structures for restaurants and professional services have nothing in common.
Yeah, I agree that it’s a way to recoup lost liquor revenue, but I also think it’s a way to discourage people from doing BYO in hopes that they’ll buy a bottle of wine instead. Honestly, that doesn’t really work on me… I will almost never shell out for the restaurant markup. Too many conditions have to be met. I’ll bring a bottle and glasses if the corkage fee is low, drink a couple wines by the glass if they’re interesting (which I realize also is really marked up, but this way you get a bit of variety), or just have cocktails, which a good bartender can typically make better than I can.
It’s certainly a gray area, in large part because I would guess most restaurants don’t have an official, stated policy of whether they charge corkage on a corked bottle of wine. Similarly, patrons don’t ask that question upfront because it doesn’t really occur to them.
It’s a service business, and I don’t think it’s very customer-oriented to charge someone corkage on a bottle that turns out to be undrinkable. Although it’s not a perfect analogy, customers order dishes all the time and find that they don’t like the dish. Even though it’s not necessarily the fault of the restaurant, the vast majority of restaurants will remove the dish and won’t charge you (assuming you didn’t eat too much of it and then “decided” you didn’t like it). So there’s a situation where the restaurant eats the cost of what they would have charged the customer. So why hit them with a corkage charge on a bottle that’s undrinkable? If you had ordered a bottle of wine off their list and it turned out to be defective (for whatever reason), they shouldn’t charge you for the cost of that bottle…
Bruce
Excellent point, I was going to say the same.
What if you drank half the bottle before realizing it was lightly corked? What if half the people can’t tell? What if it had VA, or Brett? What if it’s just an overripe fruit bomb and and half the table can’t drink it? Maybe half a corkage?
Corkage is up to the restaurant, whether we choose to patronize the restaurant is up to us. Frankly, offlines can be a bit of a pain to a restaurant. We take up space, make noise, use a lot of glassware, and stay a long time. Personally, when I find a place that is relatively corkage friendly, my approach is to try not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
-Al
+1
Absolutely, which is why restaurants that accept the patronage of wine groups are so valuable. I was at a wine dinner on Tuesday night at a restaurant which hosts that group once a month, and seems happy to do so. Zero corkage. And we left a 30% tip. I used to do monthly lunches at another restaurant that was VERY happy to have our group. They charged zero corkage. Most of us brought our own glassware, and handled the wine ourselves, and the lunch bill never came to more than about $30 each. But we would leave a large tip, and the place was elated to have us back each time. The truth is, restaurants that impose and enforce punitive corkage policies are more often than not losing good business, at least from knowledgeable wine groups who aren’t trying to sneak in a $12 bottle for dinner instead of ordering from the wine list.
I’m not sure I see that as a useful analogy - if the restaurant is serving the food or the wine, the risk is on them that either won’t satisfy the customer. If the food came out with a cockroach, it’s defective and they’d bring a replacement. If the wine comes out corked, they’d bring a replacement.
If you order wine at a restaurant and don’t like the taste, most restaurants won’t let you send it back. Oddly, they may very well do so with food, although not always.
This is a third case, where you bring your own wine that you’ve selected base on your own experience. While I originally posted that they provided the service so you should pay, that presumes that you’re paying for a “service”. I can certainly see the other point, which is that you’re paying to cover the lost markup/profit on a bottle they sell from their cellar. As such, you should no more pay for a bottle that you don’t drink because it’s corked than you should pay for a bottle that you bring and don’t drink–in either case you have not deprived the restaurant of a profit item.
I can be a difficult person when things piss me off… In this case I’d tell the server/manager and ask for it to be taken off. I’ve never had to go beyond this… they’ve always taken good care of the customer… Hypothetically what would i do? I’m not sure… probably not go back to the place? That and tell them that I’ll just pay it, but i WILL dispute it with my cc company. A CC chargeback costs the vendor about $25 and they should know this. if they’re smart they will just take it off… if they’re stupid… well you can’t teach stupid - but again this hasn’t ever happened.
Reminds me of a funny story when i was working in China - of course there the culture is quite different - no tipping, and restaurants treat you like god b/c competition is hyper intense.
So a server spills a bowl of soup all over one of the girl’s shirt… there were 4 or 5 of us there eating. Anyhow, we argued with the restaurant they need to comp our meal… (like… 300 RMB, about 45 dollars). They simply refused. So we said fine then you need to replace her shirt. they asked how much, we said around 600 RMB. They said ok, so during the meal, the girl goes to the mall that the restaurant is in, buys a new shirt. puts it on, and gives the soiled shirt back to the restaurant.
We couldn’t stop laughing about it… I wonder what happens if other articles of clothing was stained… hmm… well that’s my contribution for the day… ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Im sure the menu at the restaurant states that corkage is $xx. Its the price you pay to be a wine snob.
Alan, I have policies on place that I may or may not bend. For instance, Customer A comes to me with a broken tool that he originally purchased from me. For him I will take the time to take the tool apart, inspect it and repair (if minor) for free. Customer B walks up with the same tool with the same issue but he bought it online to save a buck. I charge him for the repairs.
Edited for poor spelling/proof reading ability.
The question should have been, “should restaurants be allowed to charge corkage fees?”, and the answer is, NOT JUST NO, BUT HELL NO. Any restaurant that sells wine should be required, by law, to permit patrons to bring their own wines, and forbidden to charge corkage fees. This would provide some competition to the restaurant’s own wine list, and drive down prices to reasonable levels.
Restaurants in the U.S. typically mark up their bottles 100-250%. This is crazy, and prevents a lot of people from enjoying wine with their meals. We took a vacation in New Zealand back in 2002, and were delighted to discover that a lot of restaurants there do not charge corkage fees to patrons who bring in their own wine. What a great idea.
i’d like to add that this has never been discussed on the wine internets before.
Ballsy on their part…wow.
Tipping goes to the servers, corkage (or any lost revenue on wine sales) goes to the restaurant. Boosting the former doesn’t compensate the restaurant for the absence of the latter. I do the same (tip more in corkage friendly places), but I can also see things from the restaurant’s perspective.
-Al
No sh*t wow. Corkage on a corked bottle is a very interesting discussion. I can very easily see a restaurant’s point of view that they should or that they could. But, I also think that it would be a poor business decision.
JD
I would certainly agree with these sentiments. A few posters have raised a valid point that “technically” the diner should pay the corkage on the corked bottle. However, the good will engendered by simply dropping the charge would be worth far more than the $20 they received. When we go out ( often with John), we tip rather well at a restaurant that has corkage. Had the server the knowledge or clout to simply “forget” about that bottle; I have a strong suspicion that a nice % of that $20 might have ended up in his/ her pocket rather than the restaurant’s till.
Cheers!
Marshall
Though I have no real opinion on the issue at hand…in Philadelphia we have so many terrific BYOB that most? don’t charge, (And a BYO like that is different from one which has a winelist and allows BYO, too; they are missing a sale.) I’ve never had a corked wine I brought. The reason is simple: I open it before bringing it and do whatever necessary prep I think the wine needs e.g., decanting, aeration, cleaning, etc…I am trying to avoid a situation of pop and pour that results in a less than pleasing experience with any wine…at home or BYO.
Sometimes I joke about one of my friends demanding that a restaurant replace, at their expense, a corked BYO bottle…suggesting that he is unrealistic (and the epitome of chutzpah )in what BYO is really about: accomodation for everyone, esp. winelovers, though the restaurant gets its reward.
What seems to be at issue here is good will and smart business on the part of the individual restaurant, rather than any real larger issue. But, if there is a larger issue, I say “isn’t it, at least, partyly the responsibility of the customer at a BYO to take the risk…especially since it is totall avoidable with some preparation on his/her part”?
I have long been critical of excessive corkage (on these threads). But it isn’t the restaurant’s fault that the wine was corked. They opened, they poured - they held up their end of the bargain. If you didn’t notice the problem until it was too late, it’s too bad for you. I’d call that one of the risks of corkage. If you call it before it gets poured, then they shouldn’t charge.
And Alan - you really don’t think they should charge for multiple bottles? Again, excessive corkage drives me up a wall - I avoid places that I think overcharge. But I have no reason to think that if I go in with one bottle for a party of two or two bottles for a party of four that I will pay a single corkage fee.
Also, yeah, if I owned the restaurant and you were a regular, I’d take it off of the bill - though I would feel no obligation to do so.
But someone who brings a cheap/common wine that is corked - and especially not a regular - that might not be the kind of customer that is worth keeping.
I love these corkage threads.
The clear difference being that the restaurant cooked the dish. If they opened a corked bottle from their own cellar, you could reasonably ask them to not charge you. If you bring a corked bottle, it isn’t their responsibility.
(And my rule of thumb is that an appropriate corkage is equal to the price of the cheapest bottle on the list.)
No corkage should be allowed? That’s silly. That verges on “I’ll bring my own steak, so don’t charge me as much to cook/serve it.” If corkage was not allowed, the food prices would be increased. So anyone saying corkage should not be allowed is basically asking non-drinkers to subsidize part of the cost of their dinner.