the.com/corkage
the fee you pay for the privilege of drinking wine the restaurant didn't sell you.
means a fee a restaurant charges for opening and serving a bottle of wine you brought yourself.
from from the literal act of pulling a cork, once a service performed by sommeliers for guests who arrived with their own bottles, mostly aristocrats too attached to their cellars to trust a wine list.
typical range$15 to $50 per bottle in the us
markup avoidedrestaurants often mark up wine 200 to 300 percent
waived nightssome spots drop it on slow weekdays to fill seats
byo culturecalifornia and australia normalized it decades before elsewhere
for instance
french laundry — charges corkage but limits bottles per table, napa valley
melbourne byo scene — australian city built a dining culture around bring-your-own
nyc byo laws — new york restricts corkage to unlicensed venues only