Restaurant · opening · opening stock
Opening a restaurant: the opening cellar, twenty wines and not one more
The opening cellar is where people most often get it wrong, and always in the same direction: too many wines, too much stock, too much money tied up before the first cover. Twenty wines are enough to open, four by the glass, the rest by the bottle, three weeks of stock. The rest gets added once the dining room has had its say.
Twenty wines, broken down
For a 40-cover dining room, seasonal French cooking. A wine bar or a fine-dining restaurant splits it differently; the dedicated pages say how.
| Section | Wines | What goes in | Opening stock |
|---|---|---|---|
| By the glass | 4 | A red, a white, a rosé, a sparkling. Bordeaux at €8–16 that hold up three days once open. | 4 to 6 cases each |
| Reds by the bottle | 7 | Two Bordeaux Supérieur, two Médoc crus bourgeois, two Right Bank, one classified growth for the top of the list. | 1 to 2 cases each |
| Whites by the bottle | 4 | An Entre-deux-Mers, two Pessac-Léognan or Graves, a sweet white in half-bottles for dessert. | 1 case each |
| Rosé and clairet | 2 | A rosé, a clairet. Seasonal: restock in April, let it run out in October. | 1 case each |
| Sparkling | 2 | A champagne, a crémant on request. A half-bottle of champagne sells well for two. | 1 to 2 cases |
| Magnum | 1 | A cru bourgeois in magnum for tables of six and more. It sells itself. | 3 magnums |
Indicative budget for the opening cellar: €3,000–8,000 excl. VAT for 40 covers, depending on the share of classified growths. The low end opens a bistro; the high end, a restaurant that hopes for a Michelin star one day. Orders of magnitude; the quote does the exact count.
Three weeks of stock, not three months
Wine does not go off, but the money it ties up has a cost. An opening cellar sized for three weeks of service, restocked every two weeks, turns over fifteen times a year; a three-month cellar turns over four times, with the same bottles and three times as much idle cash. A wine merchant's delivery times, a week for parcels, make short stock possible. The only item you can buy generously is the wine by the glass: it goes fast, and volume pricing kicks in from about ten cases.
The wine list structure splits your wines by colour and price band according to the type of restaurant, and prints. The by-the-glass markup calculator sets the selling price and the real margin per bottle opened, wastage included: those are the two figures to pin down before ordering.
What to leave out at the start
- Great vintages for laying down. They tie up €60 a bottle for five years. Buy them when the list has customers asking for them, and ready to drink.
- Three wines at the same price and in the same style. Two Bordeaux Supérieur at €9 are enough; the third only splits the turnover.
- Half-bottles of red. They are reassuring and they don't sell. The glass does the same job.
- Your brother-in-law's wine. A wine you cannot restock within a week has no place on an opening list.
After opening
Six weeks of service tell you what the dining room drinks. White sells more than expected in fish and terrace restaurants; expensive red sells less than expected everywhere, except on Friday nights. You then add three to five wines where there is demand, drop the ones that have not moved, and the list settles at its cruising size of twenty-five to thirty-five lines. A Bordeaux wine merchant like Transvins supplies the core of that list and the top end in ready-to-drink vintages; other regions stay with your other suppliers, with no exclusivity asked. The page wine for restaurants describes how it works: samples, quote within 48 hours, delivery.
Give the number of covers and the type of cooking. Reply within 48 working hours.
How many wines do you need to open a restaurant?
About twenty for 40 covers: four by the glass, seven reds, four whites, two rosés, two sparkling, one magnum. A longer opening list does not bring sales, it brings stock. Go up to thirty after six weeks of service, based on what the dining room has asked for.
What budget for the opening cellar?
Between €3,000 and €8,000 excl. VAT for 40 covers, depending on the share of classified growths and the by-the-glass stock. The first restock comes two to three weeks after opening and is paid for out of the first takings; that is why the initial stock stays short.
Should you buy old vintages from the day you open?
No, unless your concept depends on it. A wine merchant who keeps old vintages in stock supplies them ready to drink, on demand, when a table asks for them: that is the point of not keeping them in your own cellar.
Is unsold stock taken back?
No, unopened cases are not taken back. One more reason to open with three weeks of stock and restock often: what does not sell shows up quickly and does not get reordered.