Strange corkage quote

S

Scott Kraft

Scott Kraft
In the WSJ. From Chris Deegan, NOPA's wine director:

Corkage, to an extent, "is like bringing your own meat to a restaurant and asking us to cook it for you," he (Deegan) says.

I know many of us in SF enjoy NOPA and its excellent, thoughtful list. But seriously? Of course, this could be journalistic license. (The "to an extent" is one of the wimpiest, most fucked up pieces of rhetoric I've read today.)

I don't intend to open an argument about corkage - we've all had enough of that, I hope. But what an off-putting, unnecessarily contentious, and false simile.

If the reporter got the spirit of the quote right, maybe NOPA would rather call it "Screwage."
 
Quite possibly. But a similar comparison was made by Craig "Delfina" Stoll (another nice guy!) to the Chron several years ago:

"Stoll points out that diners don't bring their own coffee into a restaurant to drink after a meal."

Different context - the Pizzeria doesn't allow BYO, or at least didn't at that time. So he was defending his choice, as opposed to the WSJ quote which is essentially saying, "yeah we have corkage but we don't like it and we don't like people who choose to BYO."

Still, there's a theme! Chris' comment is much meatier!
 
I once spent an hour and a half talking to a reporter (non-wine related) and she ended up using one brief insignificant sentence and removed all context so it came across as somewhat sensational. I'd give Deegan a chance to clarify before raking him over the coals.

Journalism is a dying art.
 
Mark at slanted door has kind of the same take on it, if i remember correctly.
I take no offense if you don't like corkage, but you better have a real kick ass wine list to back you up.
 
originally posted by guilhaume:
Mark at slanted door has kind of the same take on it, if i remember correctly.
I take no offense if you don't like corkage, but you better have a real kick ass wine list to back you up.
Click to expand...
I take it there aren't many BYOB restaurants in the Bay area? In Philadelphia and NJ there's a large selection of BYOBs but restaurants with wine lists have very high markups (3x to 4x retail). Restaurants with liquor licenses don't allow BYOB typically, but some have BYOB nights.
 
Sorry for the slight thread drift, but does anyone know of any good DC BYOBs? I know Dino and Lavandou have pretty generous corkage policies, but I was wondering if there are any others. Looking specifically for no corkage fee nights and corkage fees of $20 and under.

And good food wouldn't be bad either.

BTW: How is Lavandou's food, if you've been?
 
Another very nice guy! Mark goes to great lengths to explain - directly and by proxy - why his selections work best with the food. However, Mark is down saying:

"I don't really care. I mean, I think it's weird - you don't go the dentist and bring your own drill. I don't understand why anyone would bring in outside product. But I really don't care. We charge people at the restaurant, but we have no crazy policy. A lot of people actually bring in their own wine: They'll look at our list, won't recognize anything, and they'll go pick something up at Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant - it happens all the time."

Dentist drills. Ouch!

I get the resentment. You work really hard to put together a list that complements the food and people still come in with crap wines that don't. It can come across as insulting. But I really don't get vilifying one's customers for choosing to exercise an option that you're presenting them. Even if you think the option is a poor one.

Anyone know where I can find a state-of-the-art dentist's drill for my next appointment?
 
Where there is resistance to corkage, at least in the Bay Area, I gather that it comes from (the many) people who bring in $2-20 wines of mediocre or worse quality and/or wines that are on the wine list. I've rarely had resistance to bringing in a 10-15+ year old wine from a good producer that matches with the food.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
I can imagine a lot of Mark's frustration comes from the fact that people are oftentimes hostile at the idea of paying corkage.
Click to expand...

Those who do deserve the dentist's drill.
 
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