Tag Archives: BYOB

BYOB and why it works for restaurants

Pizza on a table
The restaurant made money on us — even though it was BYOB. And the food was good, too.

It allows restaurants to make money they wouldn’t have made otherwise – and to make customers very happy

A couple of weeks ago, the Wine Curmudgeon met some friends – not in the wine business – for dinner at a suburban Dallas Italian restaurant. The restaurant was empty when we arrived at 5 p.m. on a brutally hot Sunday, but by the time we left a couple of hours later, it was packed. And, believe it or not, almost every table had a bottle of wine or two on it. Which, of course, doesn’t happen all that much these days.

And what seemed to be the reason for that? How about a $1.95 per person corkage fee?

The WC has taken a lot of criticism over the years for advocating BYOB, or bring your own bottle — the practice where restaurants charge a fee for letting customers bring their own wine for dinner. I’ve never understood why so many get so irritated with me for supporting BYOB, since it brings in business that the restaurant probably wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

That’s the only reason we were eating there that night – and I’m sure we weren’t the only ones. Many of the diners looked to be regulars in what seemed to be a very neighborhood kind of place.

The math makes perfect sense to me. The four of us spent around $120 for dinner, which included the corkage fee (though not tax and tip). We tasted a half dozen wines; everyone brought something, and we had much fun tasting and talking about them. If we had done that at a non-BYOB restaurant, we would have a split a couple of very ordinary bottles between us, not had as much fun, and the price of dinner could have doubled.

So what did the restaurant give up to get our $120 worth of business? Not a damn thing. It earned our $120 that it wouldn’t have gotten otherwise because we didn’t have to buy a couple of bottles of wine that were likely on the list for no particular reason save that the list needed to have a $30 or $40 wine. Or even have a wine list.

So yes, BYOB works – for both diners and restaurants

Finally, a note to the restaurant manager, who kept looking at all those wine bottles and worrying: We didn’t finish all of them, took several with us when we left, and each drove home safely.

Ask the WC 30: BYOB, wine for friends, California fires

BYOB wine
Not to worry — restaurants make money when they offer BYOB.

This edition of Ask the WC: The BYOB conundrum, wine for friends who don’t necessarily drink wine, and California’s 2021 wildfire season

Because the customers always have questions, and the Wine Curmudgeon has answers in this irregular feature. You can Ask the Wine Curmudgeon a wine-related question by clicking here.

Dear Wine Curmudgeon:
So this BYOB thing doesn’t track for me. Why should a restaurant — which seems to make so much money from wine — let me bring my own wine?
Perplexed diner

Dear Diner:
BYOB — or bring your own bottle — has long been part of restaurant wine. The reasons vary: Some restaurants offer it because they don’t want to bother with the aggravation that is a liquor license, while some see BYOB as adding value to their wine offerings. In addition, in some states, it’s legal to do BYOB but not legal to sell alcohol and some states forbid it. And don’t worry about restaurants being short-changed. Most that do BYOB charge what’s called a corkage fee, say $10 a bottle, for each bottle you bring in. I’ve long been a proponent of BYOB, since it gives diners who might not was to spend $75 for a bottle a chance to drink wine with dinner. This, of course, has elicited harsh criticism from many of my colleagues.

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Hey WC:
Most of my friends don’t drink wine — when there’s a party, I’m about the only one who brings any, and hardly anyone drinks it. So what kind of wine should I bring? It’s kind of embarrassing to have take two mostly full bottles home with me.
Embarrassed

Dear Embarrassed:
Bring rose, even if it’s a little sweet, and make sure it’s as cold as possible — so, if necessary, put some ice cubes in it. The idea is to let everyone know that wine is as just as much fun as some overpriced carbonated water with a bit of booze and fruit flavoring. And rose, of course, is the natural version of that stuff.
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Hello, Wine Curmudgeon:
I haven’t seen much on the blog this summer about the California wildfires. How have they affected the wine country?
Watching the news

Dear News:
That there hasn’t been much news is good news. This has been another difficult fire season, but — so far  — the fires haven’t affected the state’s wine regions too much. I’ve talked to several producers who have said they’ve mostly been able to finish harvest without too much worry about fires. This, of course, is far different from the past couple of years.

Photo: IntergalacticC vis Morguefile

More Ask the WC:
• Ask the WC 29: Birthday gifts, larger bottles, and on-line
• Ask the WC 28: Wine Curmudgeon ethics, sweet red wine, and wine spending
• Ask the WC 27: Pandemic wine sales, red Burgundy, wine competitions

Drop dead, restaurant wine prices

restaurant wine prices
Restaurant wine prices are too high, which prevents restaurants from selling more wine and restaurant customers from drinking more wine. Everyone understands this but restaurants (see the cheap wine book and various academic studies); nevertheless, the people who run them seem content to charge higher prices, sell less wine, and make even less money.

The Wine Curmudgeon was reminded of this again on Saturday night during dinner at Urbano’s, probably Dallas’ best-known BYOB restaurant and where the food is more or less moderately priced. During the 2 ½ hours we were there, everyone was drinking wine, most of the tables had more than one bottle (including sparkling and rose, not a common sight), and hardly any of the wine I saw was grocery store plonk. The table next to us, in fact, came prepared with a very expensive wine carryall that contained several pricey bottles.

What was the reason for all that wine? Urbano’s charges $5 per bottle for corkage, so no one had to pay $50 for a bottle from a mediocre wine list. Instead, a table of of four will spend $10 at Urbano’s for two bottles of wine, cutting the bill by at least one-third.

The caveats? Urbano is small, with fewer than a couple of dozen tables, and its reputation as BYOB means it attracts wine drinkers. But given the traditional Dallas antipathy to wine – the bottle at my table when I go out usually gets more than a few stares from the sweet tea drinkers – every table at Urbano’s that had wine speaks volumes about the difference price makes. Because, as our waitress told me, 80 percent of their customers bring their own wine.

So, once again, a plea for fair restaurant wine pricing. I don’t expect wine so cheap that it competes with retail pricing. But would it be so awful if restaurants only doubled the price of the bottle that cost them $10 instead of tripling it?