516863 Wed May 07 15:39:20 -0700 2008 22 29 Not About Food 0 3666204 What is your opinion with Corkage Fees, I had a customer this weekend who made such a big deal about it, in my restaurant we charge $25 corkage fee, which we think is fair, This customer complained saying that he is a restauant owner and we should be ashamed of our selves for charging a corkage fee, What is your opinion on this subject? Wed May 07 15:39:22 -0700 2008 138910 mupp 1 3666504 I think this customer is a little out of touch with reality. I bring wine from my cellar all the time to restaurants and expect to be charged. It is only fair. I also usually select something else from the restaurant's wine list. The owner could have also been reacting to the amount. $25 is high... hopefully you are in a major metro area or have a very upscale restaurant. Wed May 07 17:13:00 -0700 2008 3666204 180467 WineUnleashed 1 3666728 If you do not sell wine, then I think you should not have any corkage fee at all. If you feel you need to cover the cost of glasses or a corkscrew, then maybe 3 or 5 bucks. If you sell wine then corkage can be more like 10 or 15 Wed May 07 18:29:46 -0700 2008 3666204 60617 rednyellow 2 3667442 >>If you do not sell wine, then I think you should not have any corkage fee at all. rednyellow is correct. >> If you feel you need to cover the cost of glasses or a corkscrew, then maybe 3 or 5 bucks. If they charged that, I'd bring my own. Thu May 08 02:57:13 -0700 2008 3666728 11104 dolores 1 3667283 If you do sell wine, it's reasonable for your corkage to be the amount of your profit on your least expensive bottle. If you don't, it's reasonable for it to be your costs (for labour, glassware including an allowance for breakage, etc), however lots of places that don't have licences in jurisdictions that allow BYO don't charge corkage to make themselves more attractive to patrons who might otherwise go to licenced establishments. However, I don't think corkage fees are based on what's reasonable, it's more related to whether the establishment wants to encourage BYO or not, for whatever reason within their own marketing philosophy. So if $25 works for you, I wouldn't fret about it, I'm sure restaurant owners aren't a sizable % of your clientele. Wed May 07 22:55:44 -0700 2008 3666204 69044 hsk 1 3667412 If you don't sell wine, then $25 is excessive IMO -- it's as if you're trying to make the profit of selling wine without the effort. If you do sell wine, then it's an appropriate amount to compensate for the profit otherwise to be made from selling a bottle on your list. Thu May 08 01:37:41 -0700 2008 3666204 156760 karmalaw 1 3669175 we do sell wine , we have a nice wine list, around 60 wines, from all regions. Is $25 high? we are located in South Miami, our conecpt is Casual Fine Dinning Thu May 08 12:33:24 -0700 2008 3666204 138910 mupp 2 3669606 Is $25 high for South Miami.. yes. I'd assume that fee was designed to discourage people from bringing their own rather than purchasing from your list. Now, if your list is not well-priced, and your corkage fee is $25.. then I would probably just go elsewhere rather than make an issue of it. Meanwhile, are you sure you want your concept to be "Casual Fine Dinning"? see: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dinning http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dinning Thu May 08 14:18:57 -0700 2008 3669175 156760 karmalaw 2 3669696 I do not think you are out of line at all. I agree with hsk, above. Thu May 08 14:46:41 -0700 2008 3669175 78213 emi50 2 3676156 At a "casual fine dining" restaurant, I'd expect to find whole bottles of wine for $25 or not much more. If, as others have suggested, you're just trying to discourage people from bringing their own, why not just disallow that practice? Charging $25 for a corkage fee is crazy, unless your winelist starts at $60/bottle and your waitstaff-to-customer ratio is one to one. Sun May 11 04:54:51 -0700 2008 3669175 13722 small h 1 3673160 Mupp, the standard in NYC is $15. Fri May 09 15:38:12 -0700 2008 3666204 64215 cimui 2 3676467 Is $15 really the standard in NYC? I would have guessed $25. There's corkage and then there's corkage. At a restaurant with a decent wine program, bring your own is a chance to bring something you want to drink that's not on the list. They may be decanting it for you. It is definitely extra work for them and they deserve to be paid. Then there is the syndrome of people bringing bottles of nondescript wines simply to save money. Restaurant owners would be perfectly justified in wanting to discourage this practice IMO. Disallowing it? I don't know. If you have great food but not a great wine list, being reasonable about corkage seems like a good idea. People get outraged about wine markups but, you know, just choose a restaurant where they are not exorbitant, go to an actual BYO place or whatever. I really can't believe that a "restaurant owner" would find a corkage fee shocking. It's absolutely standard in the US. Sun May 11 08:51:27 -0700 2008 3673160 11250 bibi rose 3 3676943 at a mid-priced restaurant, which is how i read "casual fine dining", and at a good many posher establishments, the corkage fee really is only $15. a lot of special occasion (read: "very nice and expensive") places also have free corkage nights -- generally on tuesday -- when business is slower. how much is it where you are? Sun May 11 12:59:02 -0700 2008 3676467 64215 cimui 4 3680915 $25 is the number that sticks in my head for a nice restaurant in Chicago. I'm sure it is lower at lots of mid-range places. I could be wrong; I don't avail myself of corkage very often if the restaurant has a liquor license. Mon May 12 17:49:06 -0700 2008 3676943 11250 bibi rose 5 3681214 no, i don't think you're wrong, bibi rose. neither of our samples is exactly scientific, i'm sure! you did make me question the results of my own informal survey from last year, when i called around for a family friend who was retiring from a tenured professorship. (he wanted to bring a bottle of wine friends had given him when he became tenured.) i found this very helpful list of corkage fees for a wide range of establishments ranging from the very expensive (per se) to the very inexpensive (di fara pizza): http://nycorked.wikispaces.com/ some restaurants that could probably be classified as "casual, fine dining" establishments on the list include cookshop, quality meats, smorgashchef, gnocco, deux amis, arte cafe, vice versa, north square. there are also a decent number of expensive restaurants that offer $15 corkage fees (i.e. ouest and cesca). i'm not sure what you get when you take the average of just the restaurants that are like mupp's. but it is, at the very least, true that there are plenty of good to very good nyc restaurants that do offer $15 corkage! Mon May 12 19:51:34 -0700 2008 3680915 64215 cimui 6 3681317 Thanks for posting that list! Really interesting. It's odd; I know my favorite local restaurant has a corkage fee, only because they have nights where it's waived. But I have no idea what that fee is! We haven't brought our own wine in a single time. Mon May 12 20:36:11 -0700 2008 3681214 11250 bibi rose 1 3676428 $25 - is that a typo? In the UK, bringing your own would only be permitted in restaurants with no alcohol licence. Charging £2 or so would be the normal corkage, if it was charged at all. Sun May 11 08:26:31 -0700 2008 3666204 154102 Harters 2 3681766 >>Charging £2 or so would be the normal corkage, Now there's a corkage fee even I might pay. Maybe. Tue May 13 02:55:38 -0700 2008 3676428 11104 dolores 2 3681848 I was about to say that I don't think anyone would dream of bringing their own wine to anything but an unlicensed restaurant in the UK. My local Indian is BYO and they don't charge anything for corkage. Tue May 13 04:58:40 -0700 2008 3676428 110146 greedygirl 3 3682052 Perhaps interestingly, a number of local "Indian" restaurants have now stopped BYO. They've either gone for the full licence or do not permit alcohol at all. I presume the latter is for religious reasons and, I think, it is having the the effect of attracting more South Asian customers. Tue May 13 06:48:00 -0700 2008 3681848 154102 Harters 1 3676470 mupp, never fell bad, that customer is completely out of line. but i have seen geographical differences in regards to attitude with corkage fees. it's much more accepted in california than new york. Sun May 11 08:52:41 -0700 2008 3666204 122578 TBird 1 3680961 $25?!! That is insane. You should wear a mask and carry a gun, charging that much. Mon May 12 18:07:57 -0700 2008 3666204 25751 carolinadawg 1 3681258 $25 is on the high(er) side of things, short a Gary Danko or Joel Robuchon, but perhaps it's fine in South Florida; I don't know. The two things said so far I agree most with were written by "WineUnleashed" ( . . . hopefully you are in a major metro area or have a very upscale restaurant), and "hsk" ("If you do sell wine, it's reasonable for your corkage to be the amount of your profit on your least expensive bottle"). Viewed properly from the restaurant owner's perspective, corkage is a GREAT tool to bring in customers. Having a reasonable corkage fee and being welcoming of people who bring in their own bottles ENCOURAGES diners to dine in your establishment more frequently, as dinner is the cost of (e.g.) two entrees, desserts, and appetizers . . . and not the $40, $60, $100 extra they would spend on a bottle of wine. Perhaps they order two glasses of Champagne off your list to start off the evening -- perhaps two glasses of white to go with the appetizers, as the red they brought works great with the steaks but not the crab cakes. Etc., etc., etc. What I will tell you is that, when I ran a restaurant, we had a $5 corkage fee. (Granted, this was in the 1980s; today it would at least $10, and perhaps $15.) Our wine list was also priced at a flat $5 over full retail -- not discount pricing, full, winery suggested retail price (WSRP). Thus, if a case of wine cost $240 prior to any discounts or post-offs the wholesaler might be offering, the WSRP equals $30, and the bottle costs you $20. While many restaurants might charge $60 or more for such a bottle, it would have been on our wine list for $35. Yes, our low corkage made us an inviting place for diners to bring in a bottle of wine. But the low prices on our wine list meant there was little need to . . . Customers who are interested and know about wines also know that Bottle X is available at Store Y for Z dollars. And when a restaurant charges double or even triple Z dollars from their list, it builds up a serious layer of resentment. But no one complains when the wine list is Z+$5 or Z+$10 . . . . Cheers, Jason Mon May 12 20:09:32 -0700 2008 3666204 28122 zin1953