Restaurant BYOB etiquette: "Shed Your Yellow Tail"

Do you BYOB?
Do you research the menu ahead of time?
Do you frown on those who are seemingly being 'cheap'?
Are you nervous about your choice of wine?
Would you like to know what the etiquette for BYOB restaurants is?
Should one call ahead?
Should the bottle be hidden or can I proudly display its label?

This online article, "Shed Your Yellow Tail" by Steven Alexander has made me feel confident about bringing some of my own. I feel it is an interesting opinion piece that constructively addresses etiquette, corkage fees, tips and most importantly, the bottle itself!

Elsewhere on the net this article has received responses as varied as

"I am the customer. Accomodate me. If I bring "swill" so what?"

"I liked the article. Promoting the "etiquette" side of the issue makes a lot of sense and is a far gentler way of getting people to leave the Yellow Tail at home."

"I hate most restaurant wine lists ... I paid a $10 corkage and do thank the restaurant for this courtesy. In return I will not bring cheap or market wines to the restaurant or open something they have on the list. I think wine lists are ridiculously prices but in return for BYOB privledges I try not to insult them."

" Having worked at a number of higher-end restaurants with good lists in college, the Chicago writer is right: in a restaurant where the staff knows about wine, and pairings, the quality of your meal and experience will absolutely decrease if you bring in plonk"

"The best advice given is to toss the Tail and bring quality bottles of wine to BYOB restaurants. BYOB restaurants concentrate on nothing less than superior food, no time and money is wasted on stocking a wine cellar, so do some research and grab a bottle (or more) of decent wine, perhaps an expensive bottle that you can slurge on and go hit a byob."

What do you think?

I feel that this is a really interesting issue and one that I was almost embarrassed to bring up before being provided with the impetus and backing of Steven Alexander's article.

I read this article with great interest, and while it was humorous, I didn't find the tone or the information particularly constructive. I am someone who enjoys wine, I pay attention to what wines I enjoy, I pay attention to pairings that I prefer, but by no means am I a wine expert or "wine geek". If the author's intent was to educate, inform, or inspire, the effect was lost on me. As the author illustrates, there are many people who dine out at BYO restaurants with wine or a pairing that I would find distasteful, but I belive there are more people who consider their BYO with care and interest (you'll find hundreds of them on this board). Frankly, I don't care what they're drinking at the table next to me. They should drink what they like and I would hope they would allow me the freedom to do the same. Furthermore, The tone and statements in this article project the notion that I need to spend more money on wine so I look more interesting when I drink it. Please.

Secondly, the author paints the picture of Chicago BYO restaurants as trendy sushi bars or fine dining establishments that are reporting the customers' bottle choices to the chef who's prepping foie gras. In my experience, a more accurate picture of Chicago BYO restaurants are that they are often very small, family-owned-and-operated, ethnic, and not particularly trendy (there are exceptions to these characteristics, but this paints a more accurate picture). When I think of BYO, I think of Friendship Chinese, Lovitt, Cafe Suron, Bhabi's Kitchen, and pretty much every little Thai place in town. A quick flip through Ms. Iversen's book will back up this picture. None of these small, friendly BYO places that I frequent would ever dream of decreasing the quality of my food or service based on the fact that they don't like my bottle of wine, and if someone did, they deserve to lose my business. They don't care if I walk in with a Yellowtail or an Opus One. And they shouldn't.

Finally, this statement gives me pause:

BYOB restaurants concentrate on nothing less than superior food, no time and money is wasted on stocking a wine cellar, so do some research and grab a bottle (or more) of decent wine, perhaps an expensive bottle that you can slurge on and go hit a byob.

If these places are so concerned about the wine I bring in, then why wouldn't they want to sell me what they think is good and earn the 100% markup. I sincerely doubt that a BYO restaurant chooses to be so because they consider stocking a wine cellar to be a "waste of time". Most BYO places are that way because they have to be. They can't or don't want to go through the hassle of getting or maintaining a liquor license (a topic often discussed on this board).

If you want a accurate, useful, constructive discussion about BYOB and the associated etiquette, buy the book (of which I am in no way affiliated).

Best,
Michael / EC

Edited to repair URL tag

The above referenced comment was posted by me so allow a bit of background regarding restaurants offering wine, i.e, liquored establishment. A non byob restaurant can markup wine 300%, not just 100%. Why such a large markup. Well, there is the expense of researching wine to stock, the cost of storage of the wine, the cost of the license and insurance, cost due to breakage and theft as well as time spent managing the wine cellar. All this is above the cost and time to prepare a menu, the food and the managment of a restaurant. Trust me you would rather be a patron in a restaurant than an owner, it is much easier. Stocking a wine cellar is not a waste of time, but an endeavor that many restaurants do not want to take on or can't afford to take on. So the essence of a byob restaurant is one that can fully commit to the culinary dining experience, i.e., the food. Please don't underestimate the substantial cost savings a typical byob offers, which can actualy be half the cost of a liquored establishment ( not always, but better than 50%), when factoring your ability to byob. People tell me that byob dining offers them more opportunity to dine out since it is so cost effective.

Aside from all that, don't believe that the owner of a`BYOB cares`what wine you bring. They don't, they are more food oriented than wine oriented.

I am the publisher of www.BYOBguide.com, an online directory of BYOB restaurants, so I base my opinions on experience with BYOB's.

I hate it when any business tries to rationalize prices based on costs. Restaurants mark wine up 300% for the same reason a dog licks his you-know-what.

Because they can.

I think most people bring what they know . If many people know they like Yellow Tail, or Yellow Label VC, that's what they will bring.

Lots of people are reluctant to spend money on wine because they say "I can't tell the difference." Which is baloney - if people can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi, they can tell the difference between wines. And when I give people wine, generally, they say "wow, I love this wine". They simply haven't tasted it before.

Recently we had an event in our building and had to buy wine. I was told "Get 2-buck Chuck, or go to the supermarket and get a white zinfandel. There's no reason to spend over $6 for a bottle of wine!!"

It's simply being uninformed.

I do BYOB's all the time (last weekend ... South, 5900 N B'way, which Jodi told me she is slowly re-focussing - it got off to somewhat of a bad start, but now is excellent) - but I think the best thing about BYOBing is that it opens your eyes to more diverse ethnic places that I, for one, wouldn't have otherwise thought to try. Taste of Peru,  La Cazuela Mariscos (both far north Clark St) and especially the pupusas at Izalco (Lawrence east of Ashland) are all things I wouldn't have experienced were it not for my BYOB quest.

nr706 wrote:... all things I wouldn't have experienced were it not for my BYOB quest.

This was one of the many things that the article made me aware of, even though it may have seemed to focus more on upscale restaurants. The article and this discussion have served to encourage me to BYOB and feel more comfortable about how to approach the experience.

As for

eatchicago wrote:Furthermore, The tone and statements in this article project the notion that I need to spend more money on wine so I look more interesting when I drink it. Please.

I really don't see that in the article, Michael. Nowhere does he state that a well chosen wine is necessarily an expensive one. Rather, I think the author might even be suggesting that if you are trying to be frugal that you could at least put some thought into it, instead of grabbing the Yellow Tail...

nr706 wrote:I do BYOB's all the time (last weekend ... South, 5900 N B'way, which Jodi told me she is slowly re-focussing - it got off to somewhat of a bad start, but now is excellent) - but I think the best thing about BYOBing is that it opens your eyes to more diverse ethnic places that I, for one, wouldn't have otherwise thought to try. Taste of Peru,  La Cazuela Mariscos (both far north Clark St) and especially the pupusas at Izalco (Lawrence east of Ashland) are all things I wouldn't have experienced were it not for my BYOB quest.

The corollory of that is, I (at least) drink more wine at "ethnic" places than at other eateries. I especially seem to drink more wine with Thai food. On one hand, I do tend to eat at these kinda places more often, on the other hand, I am also more likely to have wine at these kinda places.

It is fun being cheap.

Can't help but feel a little smug when my brother-in-law's parents made such a big deal about finding their "little-known wine discovery" - Yellow Tail. I tried to be nice, but I did admit I'd heard of it before.

One thing that puzzled me about that article-- is it really common to bring things like red wine to a fancy sushi restaurant? I'm not a purist; I can enjoy wine with Japanese food but eating the wines he described with sushi did seem a bit jarring.

nr706 wrote:Can't help but feel a little smug when my brother-in-law's parents made such a big deal about finding their "little-known wine discovery" - Yellow Tail. I tried to be nice, but I did admit I'd heard of it before.

Before you get too smug, Lindeman's isn't much different than Yellow Tail. Both are mass produced, factory made wines to be sold case stacked at chain grocery stores.

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

'I'm a true believer in most Lindemans wines'
nr706

leek wrote:Lots of people are reluctant to spend money on wine because they say "I can't tell the difference." Which is baloney - if people can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi, they can tell the difference between wines.

Lee,

That is a great observation. Very true.

Best,
Al

bibi rose wrote:One thing that puzzled me about that article-- is it really common to bring things like red wine to a fancy sushi restaurant? I'm not a purist; I can enjoy wine with Japanese food but eating the wines he described with sushi did seem a bit jarring.

We think the best thing to drink with sushi is champagne, but there's a couple who also go to Kuni's in Evanston regularly, and they argue that a good red (can't remember if they suggested Burgundy or Bordeaux - French with a B...) goes quite well with sushi. Of course, we don't usually BYOB there anyway, but we could.

I'll second that sushi n' champagne...
It's also a rare time that I enjoy a beer.

Al Ehrhardt wrote:

nr706 wrote:Can't help but feel a little smug when my brother-in-law's parents made such a big deal about finding their "little-known wine discovery" - Yellow Tail. I tried to be nice, but I did admit I'd heard of it before.

Before you get too smug, Lindeman's isn't much different than Yellow Tail. Both are mass produced, factory made wines to be sold case stacked at chain grocery stores.

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

'I'm a true believer in most Lindemans wines'
nr706

My point was that the relatives thought of Yellow Tail as their own private discovery - which they said no one had heard of, and they said was probably only available in their little town in South Carolina. I admitted that I'd heard of it before. I didn't want to rub their noses in the fact that it's pretty common stuff.

But my quote wasn't meant to reflect on the quality of Yellow Tail either way.

And the Lindeman's quote was meant to reflect my experience that their wines seem to be reliable for a brand of everyday Australian wine - others I've tried are sometimes a little more variable. YMMV.

Oh, yes, champagne with sushi! Come to that, champagne with anything. That would probably be my solution if I had to do BYOB with sushi. Sake is nice but a whole bottle for two people seems like a bit much. (I sometimes forget how much more alcohol there is in sake than in wine.)

Red wine with sashimi seems fine to me too, especially if there's some dark and rich cuts of fish in there.

While dining at an Italian restaurant at lunch today, the thickly-accented waiter effusively described one of the lunch specials as containing "Jello Tail."

Scott

Scott--DFW wrote:While dining at an Italian restaurant at lunch today, the thickly-accented waiter effusively described one of the lunch specials as containing "Jello Tail."

Scott,

Maybe he was describing pig tail cooked in the style of Chicago Italian/American 'bbq' ribs. Meat jello aka rub pudding.

Enjoy,
Gary

I actually like beer and sushi, but if you want a wine suggestion, try a California or Oregon Pinot Noir. I have always liked Calera and King Estate as producers of tasty Pinot Noir, but feel free to go with a winery you know or one you want to try. You should also try French Champagne or a sparkling wine, they go very well with sushi and you probable don’t get enough sparkling wine anyway. French burgundy is excellent as well, but a bit expensive.

When I've dined w/ my in-laws (who are Japanese living in Japan), during a meal, which will often include sushi & sashimi, we'll go through beer, plum wine, sake, red wine, white wine, whiskey, shochu... just about anything I suppose in varying amounts/combinations of the above. The only consistent factor appears to be alcohol.

I like good wine, and bring good wine in a BYOB situation, but a restaurant that tried to make me feel bad because I brought in a bottle that wasn't "good enough for them" would make me very angry, indeed.

So, wait, it's an affront to the restaurant if I come in wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but not if you bring in a bottle of Arbor Mist?

That seems somewhat silly. Drinking a bad bottle of wine with dinner is going to affect the taste of the meal far more than wearing an ugly outfit.

That said, I'm really not trying to bring up this debate again! Honest!

Gleam ... that comment deserves an Arbor Mist!

gleam wrote:So, wait, it's an affront to the restaurant if I come in wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but not if you bring in a bottle of Arbor Mist?

That seems somewhat silly. Drinking a bad bottle of wine with dinner is going to affect the taste of the meal far more than wearing an ugly outfit.

That's a good point, but it has an equally good counter-point. When you bring whatever bottle of wine you bring--good, bad, or indifferent--you affect no one's experience but your own. And therefore, no restaurant has the right to give you attitude about it. But how you dress affects the experience of every other diner in the restaurant. Whether you feel it "ought to" or not, it does. So rules of decorum and consideration for others apply.

I don't have any more desire than you do to reopen the clothing thread (as it were), but you asked a question that I assume was non-rhetorical, and therefore merits an answer.

riddlemay wrote:I like good wine, and bring good wine in a BYOB situation, but a restaurant that tried to make me feel bad because I brought in a bottle that wasn't "good enough for them" would make me very angry, indeed.

You make an interesting point. In almost every instance I bring my own wine to a restaurant, I offer a glass (for drinking later) to both the server and the chef. Not only is it a nice gesture, it provides an incentive not to bring crap you'd be embarrassed to serve to other folks.