I’m taking my boywhatever out for Valentine’s Day and the restaurant promises a 2$ corkage fee. What is this? Originally I thought I would have to pay an extra two bucks every time I ordered by the glass (for wine) but google seems to indicate that it means you get to bring your own wine for a fee. Is this true? 2$ seems low for this restaurant, it’s a reasonably nice French place.
Please save me from a terrible fox paws. I don’t want to show up with a bottle of nice wine and then look assy in a hot new outfit with my beautiful boy on my arm (but sniggering at me).
snorlax is basically correct. Many restaurants allow and even encourage customers to bring their own wine when they dine. The corkage fee, or corking fee, is what they charge in order to recover some money on this practice. Essentially you’re paying for the glasses and ice bucket they’ll provide while saving money by not buying wine from them. Occasionally restaurants do not have a liquor license and cannot sell wine making a BYOB policy important for business.
Yes; it’s exactly that; wine is a serious profit centre for restaurants; corkage fees serve to reclaim some of the profit margin lost if the customer brings his own wine and/or to discourage the customer from doing this instead of just choosing something from the wine list.
A corkage fee of $2 is probably equivalent to saying “we’ll waive the corkage fee on this occasion”.
You get more definitions when you google define:corkage.
My understanding is that it’s not just for opening the bottle.
The price you pay for food/drink in a restaurant isn’t just for them providing the food/drink, it also pays for their providing the premises, i.e. part of the price is rent for your seat (and the entrance fee for any entertaining that’s laid on). Corkage is meant to compensate for that.
The others have defined the practice in more detail but I should probably be a bit more clear on my original response. They will open the bottle for you, but you can’t avoid the charge by bringing your own corkscrew! Now *that * would be a faux pas…
But you can avoid it by smuggling in the already opened bottle secreted in your clothing. You will have to take turns ducking under the table to drink from the bottle of course.
There’s also a psychological element; corkage (obviously)draws attention to the fact that you’ve brought your own wine, so you’d better bring something good, or at least have the courage of convictions to sit there and drink your Blue Nun with pride. Many people, faced with this pressure, will bottle out (pun intended) and just choose something mid-priced from the wine list.
Listen to this bloke. He has much wisdom to impart.
Of course it is better if the waiter is heading back to the kitchen with an order when you do the duck routine…otherwise he might think you are a sex maniac hell-bent on giving quick headjobs to your partner.
It’s worth noting - though almost surely not applicable in this case - that restaurants which don’t have liquor licenses or are operating in “dry” areas may also provide this service.
Really, the $2 is almost certainly an offer just for that day. It’s an invitation to bring that special bottle for you to share on Valentine’s day without getting caned for it as you usually would. The idea is you bring the 30 year old bottle of red or the vintage champagne (or, hell, the 80c legopener) from your first date as a romantic gesture. It’s not intended to be a way of having a slightly cheaper night out (but how will they know?).
And beware the corkage charge is often per person and can be very cruel. A bunch of us from work went out for lunch one day and I had brought along a bottle of wine (white shiraz) that I thought people may like to try. Because the corkage was $2 per head it was going to cost $18 for an $8 bottle of wine. As I couldn’t convince them to reduce the charge we didn’t drink it. Even worse, the maker uses screw tops - not a cork to be seen.
You might also enquire as to whther the restaurant already has your chosen wine in its cellars before bringing it. If they already have it, suck it up and buy their bottle. It’s considered terribly rude and cheap to bring your own and pay a low corkage to avoid paying whatever they charge for that bottle.
First, thank you for all the responses on corkage etiquette, it’s very helpful.
Second, this is the place we will be dining at…Cafe Bizou. I was surprised at the 2$ fee because while the restaurant isn’t extremely pricey, it’s not that cheap either.
They have their wine list on-line but I was thinking of buying a gewurtz to take along. Generally I would have purchased a red wine but I think the boywhatever isn’t too fond of it and happens to drink it just because I like it.
By the way, it is 2$ all the time, not just for Valen-fuck’s. Every place the boy suggested we eat at turned out to be booked and so I descended to thumbing nervously through Zagat’s and picked this place and lo and behold they had ONE reservation seat left. Anyway, Zagat’s mentions the 2$ corkage all the time price. Not that it was the incentive to go…they just happened to be the only place available with a reservation and I didn’t want to drive out of town.
Rude it may be, but I’ve been in restaurants where they were charging 10x the cost of a bottle of the exact same vintage - same vineyard even - I had in the boot of my car.
Some high-end places will let regulars store their hooch on the premises.
If you want to go tacky in sneaking in your wine, fill a catheter bag with the wine, place it on your person, loop the line through your clothing, and sip away.
That’s quite cheap for a corkage fee; one restaurant I used to patronize when I have to go to Salt Lake upped their corkage fee to $15–to doubt to complement their 4X markup on stocked wine–and I had to stop patronizing them. I don’t mind paying a reasonable corkage fee–$5 or $2 per head for the use of the glass and the service–but charging me $15 to open up a $15 bottle of wine is absurd.
Cafe Bizou pissed me off both times I ate there; they’ve got the “snooty French bistro” attitude down to a T, and didn’t seem to like the fact that I was alone. “Just you, sir?” No, the band’s on the way; we’ll need seating for twelve, you fake-accented faux-frog. And in a town full of mediocre restaurants, Bizou didn’t stand out. But maybe they’ve better food and service than I’ve received in the past, YMMV. At least they didn’t ring you on the corkage. You should try The Crepe Vine next time, though, if you want to drink some vin. Bistro food without the crappy service, and a decent, if not diverse, selection of wines.
