+- WineBoard (https://www.wines.com/wineboard)
+-- Forum: GENERAL (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-100.html)
+--- Forum: Rants & Raves (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-12.html)
+--- Thread: PRICES (/thread-12491.html)
Pages:
1
2
- mrdutton - 05-09-2001
Raves......
Drew may have heard of this place, since they say they are based in Maryland. A new wine shop opened up here in Virginia Beach by the name of TOTAL WINE AND MORE. I bought the following:
1997 Cline Cotes d'Oakley at $6.99
1999 Ca del Sol Big House Red at $8.99
1999 Jaboulet Parallel 45 at $7.99
1998 J. Vidal Fleury Cotes du Ventoux at $7.99
1998 J. Vidal Fluery Cotes du Rhone Villages at $10.99
These prices are 10 to 20 percent less than what other shops in the area were charging.
What a relief.......
RANTS:
The wife and I went out to a local spot for our 24th Anniversary dinner. We had some wonderful food at reasonable prices ------ good QPR for the food. However.........
BIG HOWEVER.......
We had three glasses of Louis Jadot Beaujolais. Two for me, one for the wife.
The charge for the wine was $18.00 ($6.00 per glass). That is obsurd.
Damn, a bottle of the stuff retails for about $8.99 around here. Wholesale has got to be less than that.
What nerve. I bought two bottles of the stuff for them with three glasses. Trust me, I will be stopping by to complain.
I did not complain that same evening because I did not want to disturb our evening out........
- Botafogo - 05-09-2001
Mr Dutton, how much did they charge for the following items:
linen
clean bathrooms
rent
insurance
labor
heat or air conditioning
furniture
Kitchen equipment
plates, silver and glassware
music licensing
recycling of cooking oil
Workman's comp and FICA contributions
ect
WHAT, they gave you all of that for FREE??? And the food was well worth the money? So what is your point??????
If restaurants in America charged a cover charge for expenses and physical plant like they do in Europe or South America, then you would expect to pay slightly over retail for food and wine. But since they don't (and you presumably would like the place to be there next time you are hungry) just what do you expect them to charge?
Roberto
- Bucko - 05-09-2001
Sorry Roberto, gotta strongly disagree. Just back from Alsace, the incredible 5-course dinners were 340 Francs, the wine embarrassingly cheap, with far better offerings. American wine pricing at restaurants is absurd IMNOFHO.
Bucko
- Botafogo - 05-09-2001
A)Did they charge a small "couvert" of maybe $5 just for sitting down? This is standard at many European (and south American) restaurants.
B) I forgot advertising, do you have any idea what even a small presence in a large city's Yellow Pages (plural in both senses now since deregulation, there are multiple directories you need to be in) costs??? We have a small (3 1/5 x 4) ad in all the appropriate directories and it costs us over $800 dollars a month. You would have to sell forty bottles of Beaujolais by the glass just to pay for that, let alone any print ads in local publications or other promotion.
Here in LA there are scores of restaurants (busy ones!) charging $6 a glass for crap bulk wine that wholesales for half of the Jadot and STILL going under in six months. It is the business with the highest failure rate in the country and most consumers have NO idea of the costs involved in putting a plate of pasta on a well appointed table in a nice room in a good neighborhood.
And I haven't mentioned how many folks are working 70 hours a week for your dinner (managers and owners). Have you ever noticed how few octegenarian restrateurs you meet? They all have strokes or cardiac implosions in their 50's!!!!
Been there, done that, have MUCH respect for them but I had to get out, Roberto
- mrdutton - 05-10-2001
Well now let me tell you something. First off I certainly do not mind paying a fair price for my purchases.
Secondly, in this market area, a $6.00 glass of wine for a bottle of inexpensive, market flooded wine, is way over the norm. The norm is between $3.75 and $4.50 a glass for the cheap plonk. The mid grade plonk goes up to $4.50 to $8.00 a glass. The good stuff does not sell by the glass, but by the bottle.
Thirdly (I did not mention this previously), the advertised price for the wine on the wine list was $5.00 a glass or $24.00 for the bottle. So I was overcharged, probably by mistake.
Roberto, I dare say that you mark-up 300 percent for all of your product - that is how you pull-in all your customers, eh! Bull-hockey, you more than likely work on a cash flow and profit scheme that relies more on volume than on unit-price.
I will say it again but this time include:
IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, $6.00 for a glass of Louis Jadot Beaujolais is too expensive.
I know the business needs cash-flow to support expenses and generate profit. But that big advertising bill along with most of the stuff you mention is a write-off at tax time. I have nothing against a business making a profit. I mean why else would you want to run a business? But fair value for product and service rendered along with customer satisfaction go a long way toward generating repeat customers. Whether or not I will be a repeat customer at this business will depend on how I am treated when I return to complain.
So, Roberto, I guess my point is made.
[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 05-10-2001).]
- mrdutton - 05-10-2001
Oh I forgot to mention.......... I have worked in the business from washing the floors and bussing the tables to having my hand opened up in the deep sink because some other jerk dropped a glass and didn't tell anyone all the way to a management position.
I put my hours in and gave up my Saturday and Sunday mornings to open up for the breafast shift and then worked lunch and dinner because some one else blew off their job and didn't come in...........
Been there, done that, have respect for the people in the trade.
But the wine was still too expensive.
- Bucko - 05-10-2001
This is my number one pet peeve. Lots of people dine in restaurants and do not drink alcohol containing drinks. Am I supposed to subsidize them? I think not. Is a $25 corkage fee appropriate when all they do is give me a few glasses? Nyet. Is marking up a bottle 100-150% over RETAIL appropriate? It is ludicrous.
I WILL pay a restaurant 100% over their wholesale cost. An example, a $50 bottle may only cost the restaurant $35. If they put it on the menu at 100% over their cost, the bottle is $70. I see a $50 bottle on the list for $70 and it is a sale. No sale at $100. The restaurant would move more wine, people would buy more wine and not feel ripped off, everybody wins.
Bucko
- ddf68 - 05-10-2001
I tend to agree with Bucko. There are a couple of local restaurants with good food that I will not patronize because the wines are marked up 2.5 to 3 times retail. At those margins it is much, much cheaper and less aggravating to stay home. Maybe that behavior is uncommon enough that reducing the margins somewhat doesn't make good business sense, but sometimes I wonder.
I can live with the 100% markup--I'm not happy about it, but I can live with it. As that margin increases I wonder how, if the restaurant needs to make $12 on an $8 bottle of wine, are they making any money on the people who drink sparingly or not at all. Is that bottle of wine subsidizing the temperate?
ddf
- Innkeeper - 05-10-2001
Agree with the Buckmeister. That was exactly what we recommended when in the business. The only variation came with high end stuff. Once the doubling wholesale got above $10 in markup (talking about $10 - $15 entrees, and most wines around the same price), we kept the markup at $10. We found this moved the inventory on the high end stuff (usually bubbly) moving, and picked up ten bucks on tab that wouldn't have been there. This can be extrapolated to fit the price points in any restaurant. Was recently in a restaurant where we would have been happy with a $25 fixed markup on high end stuff.
- Botafogo - 05-10-2001
I am assuming that since it was a very special occasion (24th anniversarry, congratulations), this is a "nice" place. These days the buildout and furnishing of such a nice place can run into the actual millions and you cannot put those expenses on the bill, you have only two things to sell (food and drink) and the bank will not take IOUs. I fully understand the reaction of all of you but see no viable alternative (other than fleecing customers first in a casino) if you want a truly luxurious environment to dine in.
Here in LA we had a wonderful place called Rex Il Restaurante for about 10 years, run by a force of nature named Mauro Vicente (an amazing conductor of the best symphony of truly Italian cuisine I have ever seen out of Italy). It was a recreation of the dining salon on the Italian Luxury Liner Rex built in the lobby of a great old art deco building in downtown LA. The dining room could have easily seated 300 but was set for 120 with ten to fifteen feet between tables for privacy and to provide room for the elaborate tableside service. The place settings ran about $150 hard cost wholesale per person and they used Reidel's top stemware. There were more fresh flowers everyday than at your grandmother's funeral and a 12 foot Bosendoerfer piano in the lounge. They gave you a glass of Ca del Bosco Riserva Brut when you sat down. The duece tables were crescent shaped slabs of black marble that gave you a lot of room but put you within kissing distance of your date.
I went there every year for my birthday and gladly spent $200 a head (in the eighties) and they did a lot of business but nearly always ran at a deficit. Then they closed. I think they would have had to double the prices of everything to break even and I STILL thought it was the best value in town FOR WHAT YOU GOT both on the plate and in the room.
I too, like value for money but nearly froth at the mouth when folks don't take into account all the things besides food and wine costs that they are getting in a good let alone great restaurant.
this is making me hungry, Roberto
- mrdutton - 05-10-2001
Roberto, you and I are in different worlds.
I am not stupid and I know what kind of work goes into making a good restaurant or a fine restaurant work. You don't have to keep repeating yourself.
Thanks for the diatribe.
However, for Louis Jadot Beaujolais, $6.00 a glass is, was and forever will be too damn much.
Enough said........... I am almost sorry I posted this in the first place.
[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 05-10-2001).]
- RAD - 05-10-2001
My $0.02.
I posted something to this effect a few months back. In Japan, they have a saying: "o-kyaku-sama wa kami-sama," which means "the customer is a god." Remember this. Use it, young entrepreneurs, and you can forget about much of your advertising costs.
I think we're all intelligent enough to know the basic principles of business, and don't need refresher courses on costs that Joe Consumer might not immediately recognize.
Building on this assumption, then, we should also understand that accounting is more art than science, despite what you learned in school. So if you're in the restaurant business, there are ways other than 300% wine/liquor markups to cover costs that are much less offensive. Cover costs somewhere where it's not so obvious: for example, add a bit to the price of a meal--even Scrooge himself is not going to calculate the dinner's ingredients. Run the A/C 1 degree warmer over the course of a year (and make sure the building is energy-efficient).
Again: the customer is a god. Don't insult his intelligence by marking up wine 300% when you're not providing value-added there.
RAD
- Bucko - 05-10-2001
MrD, don't get your panties in a bunch -- this is always a hot topic with some highly opinionated views. Kick back and enjoy the exchange -- nothing personal.
I'll continue to tirade against outrageous restaurant wine prices. I just did an article for the Olympian unloading (too gently) on restaurants:
http://news.theolympian.com/stories/20010502/Features/35260.shtml
Bucko
- Botafogo - 05-10-2001
>>the customer is a god.<<
Now we get to the true gist of this: it is a religious issue! What I mean, somewhat jokingly, is that it is an issue where no one is going to change anyones's mind 'cause they are set in dogma.
>> Don't insult his intelligence by marking up wine 300% when you're not providing value-added there.<<
Here is the "added value": contrast you opening your bottle of Beaujolais at home on your TV tray and pouring it in dixie cups to drink while watching "Who wants to be a Millionaire" versus enjoying it in nice glassware in a pleasant and cozy environment with staff on hand to attend to your wishes and which you do not have to clean up after the dinner.
I always wonder why no one has this argument over ommelettes, coffee or pasta, you want outrageous mark ups, that's where to look......that double espresso you pay $3.50 for has a materials cost of under 25 cents. Yet no one ever shows up at a restaurant with a thermos of their own and asks what the "cuppage" is.
Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 05-10-2001).]
- winecollector - 05-11-2001
Well guys, I thought I would try to avoid this one, and let yuns' slug it out among yourselves, but what the hell.... If I go somewhere that I feel the prices are too high, whether it's the wine, the food, what ever, I don't make a fuss over it, I just don't go back. I try to go places that I can comfortably afford within my budget.
With that said, I frequent several places in my area that either serve wine, or I can bring it in. A glass of wine here is usually between $2.50 and $6.50. One place, usually charges me for my 1st glass of wine, and then the rest are on the house. Sometimes, I am not even charged at all, or I am brought out larger portions of food or extras. Another place, provides me with fantastic live entertainment, at the cost of $4.25 per glass of merlot, for close to 4 hours on a Saturday night, with no cover charge. A third place, lets be bring in my older vintage wines, never charges me a corkage fee, and never fails to provide my associates and I with an outstanding culinary spread that's to die for!
I also have made it a point to make sure the establishments I frequent know I do appreciate their services. I always tip more than the standard 15%, especially if the tip would be less than a $5 bill, my minimum tip. On occasions, I have been know to leave tips, of $20, $50, $100, concert tickets, tip bus-boys, and have even given a restraunt owner a bottle of wine from my cellar as a gift. If you show they are appreciated, then guess what? Then they will treat you not only like a god, but actually, more like a friend, and I'd rather have that any day.
If Beaujolais is not worth paying $6 a glass for, then don't order it. A billing error is one thing, bring the error to their attention before you pay it, and I'm sure it will be acknowledged. The charge for your wine may even have been eliminated as a kind gesture because of their mistake. But to go back later, and complain to the owner about his prices being too high is only going to make you appear cheap. Then, if you ever decide to go in there again, do you think they will look forward to serving you? Or will you be remembered for being a complainer?
No, I would not pay $6 for a glass of Beaujolais, or even $5, because I do not like it enough to justify it. But some people will. However, I will pay that much for a good chianti, or cab, or something I care for more without hesitation, especially if it will compliment my meal. Search around Mike, and maybe you'll find some other places that are more agreeable to your budget, and that you will be satisfied with. But I strongly advise not trying to tell a restraunt owner how to run his business. Otherwise, open your own, and see how you do. It's not as easy as it looks, but then again, you already know that.
[This message has been edited by winecollector (edited 05-11-2001).]
- Bucko - 05-11-2001
**But I strongly advise not trying to tell a restaurant owner how to run his business.**
I strongly disagree with that. Case in point: a very nice local restaurant allowed smoking in 1/2 of the small restaurant. They might as well have made it the whole place, because the smoke made it everywhere. I wrote the owner a letter explaining how the smoke ruined our dining pleasure. I told him that I would not return until the place was smoke free and I would advise my friends and patients to do same. Two months later the place became non-smoking.
Every time that I go to a restaurant with outrageous prices, I make it a point to tell them that they lost a wine sale due to their pricing policies. I offer them what I think a reasonable pricing policy should be. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I do not suffer in silence, nor am I bellicose -- I just make my point and move on.
Bucko
- mrdutton - 05-11-2001
Bucko, thanks for pulling me up by the belt..... Yur right of course. I was starting to take this and myself too seriously.
Roberto I think your most recently posted example is a little off-base. I certainly do not watch WHO WANTS TO BE anything, let alone drink my wine out of paper cups. Nor would I suspect any of the others participating in this discussion of doing the same thing.
I think the owner/manager will be happy to take my complaint to heart and acknowlege an error, even if is after the fact. Nor do I expect to receive any kind of a "favor" for making my complaint.
As for ordering the beaujolais, it was the best possible choice for a light red wine from an extensive wine list that, IMHO, is way overpriced for every offering. I really wanted a glass or two of red wine with my meal. The beaujolais went quite nicely with the tenderloin beef, chicken, marinated sirloin tips, salmon and shrimp done in a fondue pot with a coq au vin broth in which a medley of fresh spring veggies was also cooked.
Of the many wines on this list that were familiar to me, all of them were marked up between 200 and 300 percent of what they sell for in the local market at retail.
Of the many restaurants I frequent around here I am known at several as a regular. At these places I am comped for a coctail or a glass of wine or even a bottle of wine on a surprisingly frequent basis. I return the favor by doing my best to advertise for them (word of mouth still is one of the best forms of advertising for any business), by frequenting their business as much as I can, by bringing guests with us when we dine, by sending them Christmas cards and stuff like that, and by making sure that the wait-staff who take care of me are appropriately tipped - they get about 20% to 25% from me depending on the bottom line on the check.
[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 05-11-2001).]
- winecollector - 05-12-2001
Bucko- I could not agree with you more on the smoking issue.... but that's a whole nother' subject from wine mark-ups. I am interested in knowing, if you've been able to change the opinions of any of these restraunt owners as to what thier mark-up should be when you tell them you think they are charging too much.
I an in the dark when it comes to wine and liquor laws in other states, but here in Pennsyvlania the cost for a license to sell is in the stratosphere. Our wonderful state has only issued a limited number of licenses per geographic area, and unless you applied for one years ago, it is next to impossible to get one. About the only way you can get one, is when a place goes belly up, you can buy their license, and last I heard, the license can cost you even more than your entire establishment. I wanted to open a small place that served wine and cheese and other wine friendly snacks and appetizers, and I gave up on it because of the license hassle. By the time I could re-coup what the stupid license would set me back, I'd probably be fertilizer for daisies!
- winoweenie - 05-12-2001
Out on the river and using the hotels computer. In Laughlin Nevada at the Riverside Hotel. Ate in the Gourmet room last nite and Had a marvelous meal. Had a bottle of 97 Jordon that was priced at 72 bucks. This is about double their cost . This is my take on this MrD, WC, Boto, et al,When you go out to eat, if the place gives you the pleasure you're looking for in the dining, drinking, and attitude departments, whatever the price is worth it. I don't go back to a restaurant that I think is overcharging me for the level of pleasure they deliver. I firmly believe that the owner of an establishment knows his/her costs better than I so my way of retaliating is not to come again.On the other hand, I have certain places all over the west I love and frequent every time I'm in the area. Imperial Palace in Hanford Ca.( Try to find it on a map) with Mr. Lees' exquisite Escargot and 60,000 bottle wine cellar, The Crustacean in San Fran, Chez Panisse in Berkely etc. etc. and so on. The fun and dining experience far outweighs what profit these marvelous joints enjoy. Guess I'm somewhere in the middle of MrD and Buckos' and where Roberto stands. The view of the Colorado river last nite with the boats and the sunset and lights was outstanding. The meal was just an added enjoy. Glad ther 'haint been no blood-shed on this here subject yet. WW
- Bucko - 05-12-2001
I have changed a few to the 100% over wholesale price. One of the restaurants no longer charges me corkage as a favor -- they get a very nice tip.
Bucko