Restaurants usually sell a lot of things, but typically profit on wine. Why wine? Because everyone knows how much a beer/spirit of a particular brand should cost, and dishes are typically competitively priced because they are focused on by customers and easy to compare.
But wine? Who knows how much a particular bottle of good wine is supposed to cost? It’s easy to buy a bottle at $7 and resell it at the table for $70, without anyone getting upset.
I don’t think that’s a good practice, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn in how they get away with it.
](https://click.mailerlite.com/link/c/)
It’s the choice architecture, “breadcrumbs” and cues that get customers to “freely choose” wine most of the time:
- The default table setup includes wine glasses, to set up the expectation of drinking wine here.
- The list of things to drink is called “the wine list” and includes 320 wines and an obscure back page for “other choices”.
- Each grownup gets a menu, but there’s only one wine list, brought to the head of the table. What’s the only alcoholic drink usually shared by the whole table during a meal? Yup, wine
Unlike overpriced vintages, your most profitable offer is great value for the client, but they can’t be expected to know that from the get-go. Think about where your default options, visual/narrative cues, or special offers guide your clients now, and what you can do to make them serve both sides better.