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BYOB: Toronto restaurants drop corkage fees

BYOB: Toronto restaurants drop corkage fees

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Bottle shock: corkage fees are falling all over Toronto (Photo by Quinn Dombrowski)

Along with prix-fixe menus and pink slip parties (we’re looking at you, Globe), reduced corkage fees have become a popular recession-era tactic for restaurants trying to attract diners. Ontario jumped on the BYOB bandwagon in January 2005, it has never had the same success as similar programs in Quebec. That is, until now.

“We’ve certainly seen a rise [in BYOB customers] in the last six months,” says Vertical’s Rob Montgomery, who lowered his charge from $45 to $25 about a month ago. “Guests want to spend money on food rather than wine.” He’s not the only one noticing a change. Dropping fees—which also help the house when one bottle begets another or if there’s a cocktail craving—have been on Patrick McMurray’s mind, too. The restaurateur was considering a corkage cutback at Starfish when we called; an hour later, he lowered his decanting cost from $30 to $20. As part of his democratic makeover, Carlo Cattalo is changing Splendido’s charge from $50 to $30; and Table 17 recently added a second no-charge BYOB night by popular demand. Other restos are extending successful corkage promotions. Lee and Madeline’s got hip to the craze for an April promotion: both Susur-owned spots are extending their $1 corkage to three days a week.

Here is our cheat sheet to the corkage discounts at top restaurants:

• Table 17: No corkage fee Sunday and Monday (BYOB Sunday and Monday only). 782 Queen St. E. (at Saulter St.), 416-519-1851.
• Paese: No corkage fee Sunday to Friday for first bottle; regular charge $25. 3827 Bathurst St. (at Wilson), 416-631-6585.
• Cava: No corkage fee Sunday, regular charge $30. 1560 Yonge St. (at Heath St. E.), 416-979-9918
• Centro: No corkage fee Monday to Wednesday; regular charge $35. 2472 Yonge St. (at Castlefield Ave.), 416-483-2211.
• Nota Bene: No corkage fee after 9 p.m.; regular charge $40. 180 Queen St. W. (at Simcoe St.), 416-977-6400.
• Crush Wine Bar: Corkage $1 on Mondays; regular charge $25. 455 King St. W. (at Spadina), 416-977-1234.
• Lee: Corkage $1 Monday to Wednesday; regular charge $30. 603 King St. W. (at Portland St.), 416-504-7867.
• Madeline’s: Corkage $1 Monday to Wednesday; regular charge $30. 601 King St. W. (at Portland St.), 416-603-2205.
• Starfish: Corkage $20. 100 Adelaide St. E. (at Jarvis St.), 416-366-7827.
• Gamelle: Corkage $25. 468 College St. (at Markham St.), 416-923-6254.
• Vertical: Corkage $25. 100 King St. W. (at Bay), First Canadian Place, 416-214-2252.
• Splendido: Corkage $30. 88 Harbord St. (at Spadina), 416-929-7788.

Topics: alcohol Carlo Cattalo Cava Centro Crush Wine Bar Drinks Gamelle Lee madeline's menus nota bene Paese Patrick McMurray prix fixe Recession Restaurants Splendido Starfish Table 17 Vertical Wine

26 thoughts on “BYOB: Toronto restaurants drop corkage fees”

  1. Pingback: Corkage fees dropping as EI claims rising « canadian wine geek

  2. Dr. Generosity, a Bloor West fave of mine, also does $1, $2 and $3 corkage on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. I’m loving this trend!

  3. Cafe du Lac in South Etobicoke offers $5 Wednesday corkage fees till the end of the summer.

  4. The reason BYOB hasn’t caught on in Ontario the way it has in Quebec IS the corkage fee. Every BYOB restaurant I’ve gone to in Montreal has wondered what the heck I’m talking about when I’ve asked about what the corkage fee is. Last summer, my wife and I attended a restaurant with two other couples. We went through SIX bottles of BYOB wine (we all walked to the restaurant and back) and there was NO corkage fee whatsoever. And this was on a SATURDAY night. And the place was PACKED. Ontario restaurants need to learn a few lessons from this. Charging a corkage fee of $40(or even just $10)is INSANE.

  5. I completely agree Watcher! I would eat out far more often if Ontario restaurants offered NO corkage fee. I truly believe their revenue would go way up if they did this.

    Thanks to other readers who added their favs to the list.

  6. i guess the restaurants should just have no corkage fee so they could all go out of business…in a very low profit margin business; sensible and reasonable mark up on liquor are what keep most restaurants going to offset their food cost, labour and overhead…..please wake up to the reality of the situation

  7. Dear Wakeup, if that were true, the Quebec restaurants would all be out of business by now. If the no corkage fee policy works in one city, it can work in another.

  9. It’s true; thies article seems to suggest that it is ok to charge a mere $35 to open a bottle of wine. FYI it isn’t; it is a rip off and the sooner Ontario restaurants realize this, the sooner it will feel like a treat to eat and not extortion.

  10. i recently visited toronto and being from montreal i can honestly say that if and when toronto decides to have BYOB and not charge corkage fee i personally along with several other thousands of people will be ready to relocate in a heartbeat. toronto is now a beautiful cosmopolitan city with true ethnic diversity and its culinary tastes are delightful. already light years ahead of montreal economically, montreal’s BYOB evolved from a necessary means of survival for restauranteurs than were denied liquor permits because of language issues or zoning permit problems. toronto’s situation is much different, i can only imagine the positive impact if indeed such corkage fees were removed. combined with people having more spendable income a restaurants business would increase tenfold….

  11. One other main difference is the cost of alcohol in both Quebec and Ontario, and the cost of licensing the resto. In Ontario, you still have to be licensed to be BYOB, but in Quebec you can opt for a cheaper, easier to get, BYOB license. Also, restaurants have figured out how to make money by selling “food”, where Ontario restaurants make money by selling you a bottle of wine at 300% markup – which is why Fuzion is on some menus at $22.00.

  12. Just had a great meal at TEN in Port Credit. BYOB on Mondays and no corkage at all. Great food and service. Definitely will return.

  14. For my 60th, took my mum and the bottle of ’45 Margaux she had given me, to Pegase, noted for its food and stemware. The waiter was hoping the cork would come out OK, but it started to disintegrate, so he produced some contraption that somehow removed the rest of the cork before decanting the wine – still delicious after all those years. And no corkage fees, of course!

  15. I was in Philadelphia last summer for the May 24 long weekend and most of the restaurants in Centre City are not licensing and therefore BYOB. They charge no corkage fees and just about every restaurant we looked into was packed all weekend long. I did notice that they do seem to try to pack a lot of tables in though, I guess to recover some costs but it was worth being inches away from the table beside you to enjoy your own bottle of wine for no extra cost. I think it’s ridiculous to charge a $45 corkage fee.

  16. My most fervent wish is for restaurants to simply lower the mark-up on wines to a reasonable level. 150% mark-up? 200% in some cases? That’s nuts. It’s appalling to be charged $46 for a $22 bottle of wine that I can easily buy from the LCBO.

    This is a plea to restaurant owners to give us the best of both worlds: The convenience of buying wine from you, at a mark-up we can live with.

  17. Great service+food last night $20 corkage. ordered banquet burger. brought my own pinot noir. heavenly! ask for Alex at upstairs patio bar nice guy.

  19. East Side Mario’s on Front Street here in Toronto – pleasantly surprised with no corking fee, impressed with the food and loved the service!

  20. “Wakeup” ‘s comment about restaurants not being able to survive with no corkage fee simply does not hold water. There are hundreds of restaurants in Montreal and Quebec City who do VERY WELL with a no-charge corking policy. We have homes in both Quebec City and Toronto where we live roughly half the time each. The Quebec restaurants with no corking fee are always packed and obviously thriving. Some have been in business with this policy for over ten years. It is probably just a matter of time before Toronto restaurant owners wake up to this reality …

  21. I agree. As I love to visit wineries, of course there are always a few wines with us on the way home, without corkage fee I see dining out more often in the future.

  22. I understand it may seem daunting to pay to bring your own product in to a business and have them serve it to you in their stemware and clean up after you. But it costs thousands of dollars to acquire an Ontario liquor licence let alone all the other permits and licences required to operate a legal restaurant in Ontario. Then there are the tens of thousands, or much more, dollars that go into opening a restaurant. Of course I would be remiss not to take into account all of the staff that have been trained and rely on their income to survive as well as job creation, that seems like a positive fact!
    Now say were making 1.2 million a year after a 35% food cost, salary budgets of $400,000, rent and opening debt payments and anything else that might and will go wrong and will cost earnings to repair, oh and of course I have to deduct $350,000 from that 1.2 mil cause were not selling any wine or charging a small corkage fee…
    I can’t speak as to Montreal’s situation, in Ontario it is expensive to operate a first rate restaurant and it is a business. It may seem like all fun times and late nights but it requires dedication and skill and you are only as good as your last meal and I think anybody who has dedicated their life to creating a quality product or service that is in demand should be at least afforded the opportunity to earn a decent honest living. If you cant afford to eat out in restaurants then cooking at home can be fun! except if it’s done well with quality products it’s expensive and messy and requires experience and special equipment but thats okay because it’s just INSANE to pay for something of value.
    I bet you don’t like tipping either.

  23. and I agree with Michele that marking up %200 is robbery especially if you are not offering something very exclusive…

  24. @Dick & @Wakeup Give me a break with the the poor restaurateur line. Yes it is a tough business, but with your logic food is a loss leader. If I go to a restaurant and don’t order any wine then I shouldn’t get served because they are loosing money on the food! Drivers or someone who doesn’t drink isn’t welcome at these places either?

  25. Just had dinner this week at Amuse, in the Beach. Corkage fee $30.00, which I guess from this site, is a little high. Not many other diners, so maybe they should think about Mon.-Fri. $10.00 corkage fee. Get more people hooked!
    It was our first time BYOW!! Great!
    Great meal, great service and lovely atmosphere, clean. Let’s support it…otherwise we’re stuck with the less than mediocre, filthy restaurants that have become the “norm” in “The Beach Restaurant Wasteland”, (Susur, where are you?!).

  26. Let’s follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion: The cab
    ride you brought didn’t cost $25 in gas (but you chose not to drive
    yourself). The Chair you purchased at IKEA didn’t cost $40 in materials
    (but you chose not to build it yourself). The post-secondary education
    you purchased didn’t cost $25,000 in reading materials (but you chose
    not to read and teach yourself). The car you bought didn’t cost $20,000
    in sheet metal, leather, wiring, glass, heavy metals, etc in materials
    (but you chose not to build it yourself). That nice shirt/blouse you’re
    wearing didn’t cost $60 in material and thread (but you chose not to
    make it yourself). That “Shades of Grey” book didn’t cost $13 in paper
    and ink (but you chose not to write a story yourself). That steak plate
    you ordered didn’t really cost $40 in meat and veggies (but you chose
    not to cook at home). …But a markup of 200% on wine is suddenly
    unacceptable?

    And I suppose, since you have rent/mortgage and
    bills to pay, and you need to eat and have clothes on your back… you
    very likely see that your time is valuable for whatever skill or service
    you provide. So you certainly wouldn’t fathom that anyone would
    question the worth of your time.

    Yet, it seems easy for all of us
    to question “markups” or “profit” by assuming there is no valid reason
    to pay anyone else for their time (their bills, their meals, their rent)
    when WE don’t want to cook, build, sew or create for ourselves.

    We
    have to remind ourselves that everyone deserves a chance at earning a
    living, and that having a better life than others isn’t a right or
    something to be taken advantage of.

    If you don’t really like
    paying for markups, then great! You’ll be cooking at home then, won’t
    you? Enjoying your bottle of wine at home, right? And perhaps you’ll
    start making your own furniture and clothes and build your own house
    just as it was done centuries ago…

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