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Eat & Drink

BYOWho Cares?

Posted by Staff / March 29, 2005

25 Comments

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It turns out the "Bring Your Own Wine" Program isn't as desired as us Torontonians had thought. Almost 500 Ontario restaurants had signed up for this program, but there's been a very slow take-off as per The Toronto Star.

I guess the BYOW really applies to high-end connoisseurs who have a $300 vintage in their cellar, and want to impress their friends while at Scaramouche or Susur. This isn't quite on par with my idea of a $12 bottle, no cork fee and some greasy Chinese food on Spadina.

Now, why is this such a dud in Toronto, and adopted as a staple in Montreal? Gee, could it be the ridiculous corking fee that exists here? I haven't experienced this first hand, but have heard the cork fee averages between 18-35 bucks. As I recall, there's NO cork fee, if any in Montreal.

Like so many programs the city implements, this one should eventually take off, just lower that cork fee, please!

For a list of participating restaurants, visit here.

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tim / March 29, 2005 at 03:55 pm
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this program is so ridiculous i can't believe restaurants are surprised. the ONLY way to do this is to have NO corking fee and, like Montreal, limit the BYOW thing to restaurants that don't have liquor licenses. it won't work with existing, fully licensed establishments because their business model is based on selling lots of booze.
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Justyna / March 29, 2005 at 04:41 pm
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Uggg. It's like the city wasn't really ready to embrace this project, so gave us a totally less appealing version of Montreal's BYOW. It's annoying... and why in the WORLD would Jamie Kennedy's WINE BAR be in on it? It's like insulting their own Sommelier!
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x the x / March 29, 2005 at 04:54 pm
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The cork fee isn't prescibed by the legislation; restaurants are permitted to charge whatever they want, down to zero if they want to (and there are some - albeit few - restaurants without a fee.

The fee was a concession made to restaurants who opposed the BYOW plan. In at least one way, it protects consumers, because the high markup on wine at a resto (or, if you prefer, the corkage fee) in efect subsidizes the cost of the food. Thus, if there was no corkage fee, you would just be paying more for the meal.
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Justyna / March 29, 2005 at 04:58 pm
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That would be the ideal (no cork fee), like in MTL... It would be great to save that markup cost by just bringing your own bottle. I understand wine bars being opposed, but as Tim mentioned above, this program should apply to places without a liquor licence.

Just knowing that some of these restaurants got to PICK such a high cork fee, makes me lose respect!
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x the x / March 29, 2005 at 08:28 pm
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The (non-licensed) restos that participate in Mtl are, on the whole, not great restaurants. They are the $8-15 main type restaurant, decent food, typical service and menu. You want a great meal/great wine experience, you are not going to find it at a BYOW, so the critique above doesn't hold water for me.

Toronto has a glut of middling restaurants that (I conjecture) could increase their business geometrically with a BYOW/zero-corkage fee policy. In Mtl, they attract students or small dinner parties on a Friday that want to have a couple of bottles and a decent, but not great, meal. Nobody eats great food and nobody drinks great wine (why pair a $30 from the LCBO vintages with a $10 veal scallopini?), but everyone has a good time (quantity over quality?). I'm still waiting for these restauranteurs to figure it out, and announce (and advertise) a zero-cork fee. It need not be a place without a liquor license (in fact, I think the legislation prevents it); rather, it's the place with the bottle of Jackson-Triggs house and a winelist that caps out at $40 Wolf Blass - these guys stand to make a lot of money. And at some point, they are going to figure out that people will eat a whole lot more shitty food if they can wash it down with their own wine.
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RandomTangent / March 30, 2005 at 11:21 pm
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Interesting post, and interesting comments. I've read a few news blurbs on this BYOW program, but I've never been able to put the issue in the right context.<br>
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Funny, though, I smile when I see the word "sommelier" in print. It's become quite fashionable to use that word recently, it seems. Kind of like the word "plethora" from a few years ago - man I hated seeing that word.<br>
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Maybe it's a side effect of the movie Sideways.<br>
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