Philadelphia has a great BYO scene for restaurants. There is even a high end Mexican place called Lolitas that has a BYOT (bring your own Tequila) policy. They will sell you a great Margarita mix.

There are probably a dozen or more excellent restaurants here that concentrate on the food because "liquor licences" are so expensive. The only thing to watch out for is letting the waiters open your bottle. We recently had some expensive Champagne spilled because the server didn't know what she was doing.

Sad to ruin good Tequila by drinking it with Margarita mix! :(

Back to wine, I don't know if it's still that way, but Cobras & Matadors on Beverly Blvd in LA had no winelist at all, but had an adjacent wine shop owned by the same owners, and waived corkage for bottles from there (otherwise it was $10).

How about mediocre Tequila?
 

Well, they did do a watermelon margarita mix that went well with mediocre tequila this summer. :)

When life deals you mediocre tequila, margaritas are a great idea. ^ ^ ^ :D :cool:

We've brought BYOB tax free scotch to top of the range restaurants several times in Korea. If you are a habitue they won't bat an eyelid. :) In China it`s also very common and actually advisable to bring your own wine as the restaurants mostly serve beer and spirits.

Many restaurants in the Wine Country of No Cal waive the corkage fee if you bring in a 'local' wine. The latest I just read about was Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg (Sonoma Co.). Noted chef Charlie Palmer is the owner. He has restaurants in NY and Vegas.
I also recall that Patrick's in Los Olivos (Sideways country/Santa Barbara Cty) charges $3 for corkage. I asked Patrick about that and he told me that he's in business to make a good meal - and not to make money off the wine.

In Las Vegas, a local restaurant in Henderson, Todd's Unique, will allow you to bring in your own wine, but normally they charge corkage. However, on Wed. nights, you can bring in two bottles with no corkage. Their Wed. nights are extremely busy.

Montreal has them in the 100's...
 

..and theres no corkage fees...there are whole sections of town that are entirely BYOW, Price Aurthur and the Deluth&St. Denis area.

A great place in the culver city, ca area is called http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...alifornia.html

Usually a buck to bring your own bottle - they even share previous bottles left. sometimes you get a jem.

Their fresh pastas (tortellini- spinach) is great (the sauce makes it).

There are many restaurants in the SEA area that just charge a corkage fee rather than having to pay the markup. Metropolitan Grill downtown is one such restaurant.

I believe it's CA state law that any restaurant must allow BYOB.

Thankfully, Australia is years in front of anywhere else, and has embraced BYO years ago. Some places are licenced for beer and spirits, with all wine BYO, some are full BYO including beer etc, and some are both licensed and allow BYO