We had a very nice day yesterday. My brother-in-law is in town for a visit and, instead of cooking a gigantic meal for just three, we went to one of our favorite restaurants for a Thanksgiving feast. And they had all the fixins'! I went traditional and had cider glazed turkey with butternut squash and stuffing. Lee had a rack of lamb. And my brother-in-law had the lobster. And we all shared a side of lobster mac & cheese. It was all delectable.
So something funny happened when we got to the restaurant last night. We decided to bring along a very nice bottle of wine to enjoy with our dinner. We sat down. We put the bottle on the table. We opened our menus. And then this guy walked up to the table and said:
"I am sure this is a delicious bottle of wine but in the state of Massachusetts we are not allowed to open and serve bottles of wine people bring in with them."
Whoooooooops.
You see, where we come from (Utah), you CAN bring wine to a restaurant and get charged a small corkage fee to enjoy it with your meal. Apparently the heavily religious state of Utah is less strict with their liquor because in Massachusetts, it is a no-no. No big deal. We ordered a bottle off of their menu (I had a teensy bit) and we took our bottle of wine home. Honestly, I was sort of happy we couldn't have our bottle. I'd like to open it and enjoy it when I can have more than just a sip!
In Australia restaurants can apply for a BYO (Bring Your Own) liquor license instead of a normal liquor license or some have both. Generally if they have a BYO license there is a shop nearby that you can buy wine from if didn't realise they were BYO. With BYO you can bring beer, wine or spirits.
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice any BYO restaurants in Canada. Plus in Canada, you can't bring kids to the pub! In Australia & England all pubs are family friendly. We'd go crazy if we couldn't take Lulu to the pub of a weekend afternoon & meet up with friends.