Tag: Wine News

These days, just about every business that’s still selling wine is doing so at a discount. It would be newsworthy to find a shop or restaurant not offering some kind of deal.

Savvy observers may notice restaurants are offering especially deep price cuts, with many selling bottles from their wine lists at 50% off. Discounts at retail establishments tend to average around 15-20%.

Why the difference? Because restaurants generally charge patrons between two and four times what they pay their distributors for a bottle of wine; the retail markup, by contrast, is usually only 1.5 times. Cutting restaurant prices in half will get the costs down to around what consumers are likely to pay retail.

But many restaurants can offer producers and vintages that are hard to find in retail settings.

Continue reading “Restaurants offer deep wine discounts; Wine businesses not affected by governor’s stay-home order” →

It’s Day 3 of Florida’s COVID-19 bar and restaurant restrictions. More local businesses are joining those we reported on Tuesday and jumping on the curbside pickup bandwagon. They include:

• Digress Wine and its always-curbside food truck partner Duck & Drake Kitchen
• The Wine Room on Park Ave.
• All Tim’s Wine Market locations, including the Wine Bar at Avalon Park, which will be retail-only for the duration of the state’s bar ban.

But that’s not all. There are other creative ways local wine businesses hope to entice patrons to come, maybe not in the door, but at least close to it.

Continue reading “Local businesses dream up more ways to stay afloat while quenching Central Florida’s thirst for wine and connection” →

For Orlando’s food and beverage community, today has been perhaps the most tumultuous roller coaster ride yet on the dystopian fantasy fairground that is the COVID-19 crisis.

Just after 10am, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer sent the community into a panic when he issued an executive order banning all sales of alcoholic beverages for onsite consumption in the city until further notice.

A few hours later, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued his own executive order banning sales of alcoholic drinks for 30 days at all “bars, pubs, and nightclubs,” defined as businesses that derive more than half their gross revenue from alcoholic drink sales.

Under the state order, restaurants are subject to a number of new rules to ensure social distancing, but they can still sell alcohol to drink onsite.

Continue reading “After hours of confusion, Orlando reverses course on alcohol sales at restaurants” →

UPDATED Tuesday March 17 4:30pm

Today was the day the other shoe dropped for Orlando’s wine and beverage community.

This morning, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer banned the “sale or distribution” of alcohol for onsite consumption, effective immediately. Soon afterwards, Governor Ron DeSantis ordered bars and nightclubs across the state to close for 30 days, starting at 5pm tonight.

Retail alcohol sales are still allowed, though, and local wine businesses are quickly adapting to the new rules, as well as to new expectations for social distancing.

Continue reading “Orlando wine businesses get creative in the face of new COVID-19 restrictions” →