Bring-your-own-wine helper
Set your corkage, by day if you like, with a bottle limit and a food minimum, and see the fee against what serving a bottle costs you and what a bottle off your own list makes. Check a bottle at the door and on the way out against Ontario's rules, then print a table tent for the guests and a card for the staff.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Say whether you're a restaurant or a banquet room, and whether your licence has the bring-your-own-wine endorsement.
- 2 Set your corkage and how it runs through the week: the usual fee, free on a slow night, a different fee, or no BYOW at all. Add a bottle limit and a food minimum if you want them.
- 3 Put in what serving a bottle costs you and what a bottle off your own list makes, and see whether the fee covers the work or is as good as a sale. Set it to either in one tap.
- 4 Check a bottle at the door and again when the guests leave, and work out the corkage on a bill. Print a table tent and a staff card, or copy a note for your menu.
Free, with no account. Everything is worked out on this page: your fee, days and prices are never sent to us or put in a link. Remember keeps your policy and prices on this device, and only while it's on. A bottle check or a bill is never kept.
Good to know
- Who can let guests bring wine?
- A licensed restaurant or banquet room whose liquor sales licence has the bring-your-own-wine endorsement. The endorsement is voluntary and the AGCO charges no fee for it. It doesn't apply where a caterer's endorsement does.
- What can a guest bring?
- Wine made by a wine manufacturer, in a sealed bottle. Not fortified wine, homemade or make-your-own wine, or wine made at a wine pub, and never beer or spirits. You or your staff open it, and pour it only for the guests who brought it; in a banquet room, only while they're seated at tables having a meal. It's served under the same rules as any wine: never to anyone under 19 or who is or appears intoxicated.
- Can the rest go home?
- Yes. An opened bottle leaves securely closed (the AGCO's tip sheet says with a cork flush with the top), and an unopened one as it came. Not with anyone who is or appears intoxicated. Whatever's left behind is disposed of. The corkage fee, the days, a bottle limit and a food minimum are yours to set.
- What does it leave out?
- Your licence. It may have conditions of its own, and the helper can't see it. It's for Ontario; other provinces have their own rules. Guidance, not legal or financial advice: check O. Reg. 746/21, the AGCO's endorsements guide and the Registrar's standards.
Where it fits in a restaurant
When the rules come up Liquor to go, bring-your-own wine, happy hour and the patio.
When the rules come up
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Check whether your place can send liquor out at all, every to-go drink's price against Ontario's minimum for its size, and an order as you take it: with food, sealed, who carries it, where it goes, and whether it lands before 11 p.m. Then print a card for the driver, labels for the bag and a card for the counter with your last orders.
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Drink price floor & happy hour check
Put in your drinks with their sizes and prices, and see each one against Ontario's minimum price for its size, with the lowest you can put on the menu before HST. Check the days and times against the hours of sale, paste the words for your board or post to see what the Registrar's rules don't allow, and print the notice of your happy hour prices.
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Save it: your patio, season and to-do list