Are people taking advantage of ‘bring-your-own-wine?’
Posted August 3, 2012 11:40 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – When the province announced corkage rules, our website and Twitter was bombarded with praise. But a local restauranteur with several eateries is finding few people are actually bringing their own wine in.
“We decided to go with a $20 corkage fee, standard for our restaurants, all four restaurants,” explains Nigel Pike. He is part-owner of The Cascade Room, Habit Lounge, El Camino’s, and The Union.
“Right now, we’ve had zero from all four restaurants since the start last week,” he points out.
That’s despite lots of interest right off the bat.
“My business partner, Nick, was actually in one of the news articles focusing obviously on the fact that we’re embracing it,” says Pike. “We had a lot of phone calls after that but nobody actually followed through.”
He expects this to change, but doesn’t think it will be a big selling point for his Vancouver restaurants.
“I’ve talked to a lot of our customer base and everyone is like, ‘We would [do it] if we went to a fine dining restaurant and it was some special occasion.’ But for just casual nights out, it doesn’t really get on the radar.”
