Beverage Programs Are Under Pressure. These Pros Are Finding Ways To Adapt.

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A VinePair report describes how restaurant beverage professionals are responding to rising drink costs, supply disruptions and limited storage and staff time. Their approaches include offering alternatives to expensive bottles, setting prices with sales and guests in mind, and coordinating bulk purchases where space allows.

Restaurant beverage directors are adapting wine selections, pricing and purchasing as higher costs and wholesale supply disruption complicate beverage programs, according to a VinePair report. The professionals interviewed describe strategies such as recommending less expensive regional alternatives and pooling larger orders across outlets, while noting that storage limits, labor and administrative demands restrict what businesses can do.

Wine director Will Jones of The Hope Farm and Little Bird in Fairhope, Alabama, told VinePair that the cost of Premier Cru Burgundy has made it difficult to offer those bottles at prices guests paid five years ago. He said his alternatives include Hautes-Côtes de Beaune or Hautes-Côtes de Nuits wines, as well as Bourgogne Rouge and Bourgogne Blanc. The strategy keeps wine from the same broad area on the menu at a different price point, rather than relying on the most expensive appellations.

Felipe de Assis Villela, beverage director at Bluepoint Hospitality Group in Easton, Maryland, said he can steer some guests toward wines from northern Italy, Austria or Germany. He told VinePair that a Grand Cru German wine may cost less than $200, compared with $1,800 for a Grand Cru Burgundy. The figures are examples he gave, not a full market-price comparison. Villela also said he does not focus solely on a fixed markup percentage; he considers whether a wine can sell at a price that works for both the guest and the restaurant.

Some operators use volume purchasing to lower costs or buffer against shortages, but the tactic depends on having somewhere to store the stock. Amanda Reed, director of beverage at Seattle’s E3 Co. Restaurant Group, said distributors may offer discounts for orders of five or 10 cases. Most of her group’s properties can store only that much, she told VinePair, so she may negotiate a larger commitment while receiving product in smaller deliveries. That arrangement depends on distributor terms and available supply.

Balancing Bottle Prices and Guest Demand

For restaurants, beverage programs must serve guests while also contributing to the business’s finances. When wine and other drinks cost more to buy, operators face choices about whether to raise menu prices, accept lower margins, change what they offer or risk losing sales. The report’s examples show that those decisions are not simply about finding a cheaper bottle: staff also have to explain alternatives and preserve an experience guests value.

Pricing can affect both sides of that equation. Villela said he is willing to make less on some bottles than a strict percentage markup might imply, because he wants the wines to move and remain accessible to his customers. That is his approach at his business, not a universal formula. The report does not provide financial results to compare this method with higher markups, but it illustrates the trade-off between per-bottle margin and a list that guests may be more willing to order from.

Bulk orders offer another possible response, though not every restaurant can carry enough inventory to benefit. Buying extra may help with cost or availability, but it ties up space and requires coordination. Operators with several outlets may be better placed to share a commitment or stock than a small venue with limited storage. The report presents these as practical options described by industry professionals, not fixes available to every business.

Wholesale Shifts and Rising Costs

The VinePair report describes pressure from several sources: inflation and tariffs, supply-chain difficulties, labor costs, and changes in beverage distribution. It says the wholesale sector has been in flux following the collapse of Republic National Distributing Company, or RNDC, which the source characterizes as a rapid fall from being the second-largest beverage wholesaler to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in less than two years. The supplied material does not give a precise date for that bankruptcy or quantify how it affected individual restaurants.

The report also points to a workload that extends beyond selecting drinks. Johannus Grevelink, beverage director for José Andrés Group, said his inbox can receive 40 to 60 daily emails from people pitching products, sometimes with the group’s name misspelled. His account illustrates the administrative burden of sorting product offers, alongside other management work beverage professionals may be expected to handle.

The article’s wider point is that buying and pricing choices vary with a business’s customers, storage, staffing and distributor relationships. A costly bottle may be replaced by a less expensive wine with a similar appeal, while a multi-outlet group may be able to negotiate purchases that a single location cannot. The report does not offer industry-wide data on how common these strategies are.

““I cannot sell Premier Cru Burgundy for the same price we could five years ago.””

— Will Jones, wine director at The Hope Farm and Little Bird, as quoted by VinePair

The Scale of the Pressure

The source material does not quantify how much restaurant beverage costs have risen, how many businesses have changed their programs, or how the strategies described affect revenue or profits. It also does not provide comparable figures for distributor discounts, inventory losses, or the availability of particular wines. The comments are examples from interviewed professionals and should not be read as representative data for the whole industry.

The precise effects of RNDC’s bankruptcy and tariffs on individual operators are not detailed in the supplied report. Nor does it specify how long current supply and pricing challenges are expected to last. The article describes professionals responding to uncertain conditions, but does not establish whether those conditions are easing or worsening now.

Operators Continue to Adjust

The report describes ongoing adjustments rather than a single announced policy or upcoming industry milestone. Beverage directors will continue to weigh purchase prices against what their guests are willing to order, with regional substitutions and case-volume negotiations among the options discussed. Whether those choices work will depend on the bottles available, distributor terms, customer demand and each venue’s capacity to store stock.

For readers assessing how the pressures are changing, useful indicators would include updated menu prices, changes in wine selections and reliable information about supply and wholesale conditions. The source material provides no dates for future announcements or data releases, so further developments remain uncertain.

Key Questions

What changes are beverage directors making?

In the VinePair report, professionals describe offering less expensive wine alternatives, adjusting pricing and negotiating bulk purchases where storage permits. The approaches vary by restaurant and customer base.

Why are some restaurants offering alternatives to Burgundy?

Will Jones said he cannot sell Premier Cru Burgundy at the same price as five years earlier. He described offering other Burgundy appellations, while Felipe de Assis Villela said he sometimes recommends wines from northern Italy, Austria or Germany.

Can buying wine by the case reduce costs?

It may: Amanda Reed said distributors sometimes offer discounts for purchases of five or 10 cases. She also noted that storage limits what her group can hold, and the report gives no general discount amount.

What is not yet known about the impact?

The report does not quantify cost increases across the industry or show the financial results of the strategies described. It also does not establish how conditions will change or how broadly the interviewed professionals’ experiences apply.

Source: rss