Just wow

S

SFJoe

Joe Dougherty
Will you be open to people bringing in their own wine?

Robert Bohr: Absolutely. We are thinking about $30 per bottle with no bottle limit, served in great glassware. We are going to have Zalto glassware for everything. We want people to come in and have a great time. It's not just a transaction. We want people to feel like we are actually happy that they are there spending money at our place, and the more we can demonstrate that through our actions the more people will sense that we are sincere.
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I had dinner once at Cru back in the day with mark e, and I brought a bottle of Muscadet that I wanted him to taste a glass of, with the intent of donating the rest of the bottle to the staff and ordering off the list (as we did). I was a reasonable regular, though certainly no whale or person of importance to the house.

I thought the above guy's head was going to explode as I tried to explain my plan. He totally wigged. Wigged. They almost had to take him out in a white coat.
 
Similar story. I was a frequent customer. A group of guys (half were in the wine bus) sat in front and ordered a bunch of old Austrian wine and ate dinner. We ordered mostly Neuberger so I brought a rare 375 of Neuberger TBA gifted to me by a winemaker in Austria and asked if I could open it. I was told no one, no one brings wine into Cru.

I guess they forgot to say except Rudy, Big Boy, Airplane Eddie, Wheels, etc.
 
OTOH, I've always had a special place in my heart for Airplane Eddy, Vinny Carwash, Junior Lollipops, and the rest.
 
It's now clear that there were three possible treatments one could expect at Cru:

1. BYO privileges along with "drink the wine and we'll ship you the empties and not ask any questions" privileges

2. Complete indifference

3. Having your wine actively belittled and insulted by the staff

I usually managed to make it to tier #2, but I sure had some tier #3 experiences that I doubt I'll ever forget.
 
It's a minor point, but I wasn't asking for corkage. I didn't plan to consume the wine. I just wanted to give mark e a taste, the rest was for the house to drink or incinerate as they chose. They had no revenue at risk.

Which made the crazy thing more crazy.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
It's a minor point, but I wasn't asking for corkage. I didn't plan to consume the wine. I just wanted to give mark e a taste, the rest was for the house to drink or incinerate as they chose. They had no revenue at risk.

Which made the crazy thing more crazy.
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According to conventional theory, Robert Bohr is only surpassed in douchebaggery by by Gil Limpert-Schwartz and John Kapon.

Anyway, those motherfuckers wouldn't last very long down here.

Just sayin'.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still afraid of Muscadet
https://twitter.com/x/status/58193858206507008
https://twitter.com/x/status/58198888179445760
https://twitter.com/x/status/58207850501115904
https://twitter.com/x/status/58566574356967424
https://twitter.com/x/status/59064774369087488
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Damn, I miss that guy.
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Me, too. Joe was a master at deflating those in the wine business who had a bloated opinion of themselves. (Hmmm . . . I seem to remember an exchange betweeen JD and people working for the Loire Valley Wine Board at an underheated chateau. He went straight to the heart of the issue: their misguided support of industrial crap.)
 
originally posted by VLM:

According to conventional theory, Robert Bohr is only surpassed in douchebaggery by by Gil Limpert-Schwartz and John Kapon.
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I can't believe I took the bait and looked these guys up. Now I have to spend the morning cleaning the taste of bile out of my mouth. Luckily I have some mouthwash from a top producer and my authentic perch overlooking I-290 to help me.
 
I get that the "official policy" of Cru was no BYO/corkage, but exceptions were made, perhaps very frequently, for certain friends of Cru.

But, it seems to me, that in his new venture, Bohr is welcoming BYO/corkage. What is the significance of what happened in the past at Cru, to the new policy at the new restaurant? If I own a store and refuse to sell red widgets, and then in 2013 I decide to now add red widgets to my products, so what? Or, if I open a new store in 2013 to sell red widgets, does the fact that in my old store I didn't sell red widgets matter much?

I don't meant to be an apologist for Bohr. Perhaps he had a change of heart since totally wigging out years ago when SF Joe wanted to open the Muscadet that he brought? Perhaps Bohr has come to the realization that, as a business matter, he should now welcome BYO. Seems to me that that is great thing for wine lovers in NYC.
 
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