The Sunday Business Post for 22nd June carries a report on the big mark-ups which Irish restaurant customers are paying for their wine. Examples given include an Italian Pinot Grigio which is 6.60 Euro in the shops and 29 Euro at a well-known Central Dublin eaterie, and a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc which is 9.60 Euro at an offy and 41 Euro at that same city-centre establishment, and only a little less in the other places mentioned.
This can only partly be explained by different rates of tax, even taking VAT into consideration. True, restaurants are storing, chilling and serving the stuff to your table, so that entitles them to put on a bit, but unlike food, they are not cooking it (usually). Also, other restaurants are managing to charge much lower mark-ups. Perhaps wine-lists should be required to display a typical retail price alongside the restaurant price?
On a more general note, one of the main reasons for high Dublin restaurant prices is that restaurants usually have to pay rent, and commercial rents are not controlled in Dublin.
Has anyone considered the possibility that a carefully calculated bit of statutory control on commercial rents might have a stabilising effect on restaurants and on the prices they charge?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment