Dani said:
I watched a news story on CFTO at noon where they went to a restaurant called Mamminas and advised that the restaurant was only charging a $10 corkage fee if you bring your own bottle of wine to the restaurant.
That is reasonable if you are bringing an expensive bottle.
I find $10 corkage quite reasonable as well for Bring-your-own. If memory serves, Dani, you drink greek wine, of which I cannot recall seeing a bottle retailing for more than say $18, so if your restaurant still offers the $5 markup on the stocked product, you are only looking at 25% or so for corkage.
For me, the price range of wines I drink at home are normally about $25 or so, and may rarely get up to $40 (say one Sunday a month). I've checked out the online wine lists at a few restaurants I would like to eat at which are listing some bottles I am familiar with at up to three times the price, once the tax and tip are figured in, and I find that excessive to the point where I would not go to those restaurants. I'm not sure where my price point is, but for an upper end meal in an upper end restaurant I would rather not have to moderate my desire for the proper wine for the meal for the sake of economy.
Besides, I rarely eat at any restaurant with a proper wine cellar or anything approaching a sommelier, and so I don't find the usurous mark-ups warranted. The last bottle of wine I had at a restaurant was at a Keg, where the waitress proceeded to chew the cork into tiny bits, all the while complaining about having to use someone else's corkscrew, saying she's never lost a cork in 12 years or something, and then disappearing with the bottle and bringing it back sans cork for our consumption. Now, I was eating with my dad, and the three year old or so Shiraz wouldn't hurt with any cork in it, but on a date or business dinner I may have had to beat my chest some about that. Professional service merits professional pricing, but that isn't the case in most restaurants I frequent.
For the feller with his own restaurant (forgot your name, no website with you in a bikini), I hope this works for you. From a consumer's point of view, if I order a pizza for dinner, say, it's because I don't mind spending $20 for dinner and I have a few beers in the fridge, or some wine to drink with it. If I can bring along my own wine, dirty your dishes and maybe spend only $20 more, I would personally do this more often. Once the smoking ban takes effect in my backwater town, that is, but that's another kettle of fish.
