Many restaurants across Toronto are slashing their corkage fees to get ‘bums in the seats’.  During economic times like this, people need more of an excuse to leave the house. ‘Free, Cheaper or lowered’ corkage fees can definately help get people out.

During my time in San Francisco, I went through the dotcom crash. SF’s vacancy rate went from 0.1% to %10 in about 4 months…people were leaving down at an amazing rate. Restaruants were empty every night but a reduction in corkage fees helped get people out.  Q Restaraunt, one of my favorites, had the lowest corkage in San Francisco at $8 and was packed every night. The best thing they did was offer $5 glasses of bubby to everyone while their wine was being open…who can turn down $5 bubbly!

In Toronto, we are lucky to have lots of restaurants offers ‘Free’ or ‘$1′ corkage on many nights of the week.  Table 17, in Queen Est, was one of the first to have free corkage on Sundays, they have recently added Monday as well.

Now Toronto has bunch more:

• Table 17: No corkage fee Sunday and Monday

• Paese: No corkage fee Sun to Fri for first bottle; regular charge $25.

• Cava: No corkage fee Sunday, regular charge $30.

• Centro: No corkage fee Mon to Wed; regular charge $35.

• Nota Bene: No corkage fee after 9 p.m.; regular charge $40.

• Crush Wine Bar: Corkage $1 on Mondays; regular charge $25.

• Lee: Corkage $1 Mon to Wed; regular charge $30.

• Madeline’s: Corkage $1 Mon to Wed; regular charge $30.

Some additions to the list:

• Pangea, free corkage on VGA wines

Thanks to Toronto Life for the list…

This change in prices is a huge shift from 2005 when restaurant thought BYOW was going to bankrupt them…now they are using it to say afloat in a tough economy. This recession isn’t helping many people… but it is certainly helping people “Bring Your Own Wine’.