If you run a restaurant, chances are your by-the-glass (BTG) wine program feels… fine.
The wines aren’t bad.
Guests order them.
Nothing is obviously broken.
And yet, for most restaurants, BTG is quietly underperforming.
Not because the wines are wrong.
Not because the pricing is crazy.
But because the system behind BTG makes it almost impossible to optimize.
BTG success isn’t about wine knowledge.
Even experienced wine professionals will tell you the same thing:
Every neighborhood is different.
Every dining room behaves differently.
What works in one restaurant often fails in another.
At the start, everyone is guessing.
The real problem is not guessing —
it’s being stuck with the guess.
For most restaurants, BTG decisions follow this pattern:
Pick BTG wines based on experience, distributor input, or what worked elsewhere
Buy inventory (often by the case)
Print the menu
Hope it works
If a BTG wine underperforms:
Inventory sits
Cash stays tied up
The menu doesn’t change
Pricing stays conservative
And because operators are busy running service, staffing, and food costs, most BTG programs don’t get actively monitored or adjusted.
So what happens?
Restaurants play it safe the next time.
BTG lists stagnate.
And meaningful upside never gets unlocked.
A suboptimal BTG program doesn’t fail loudly.
It fails quietly:
Guests default to the same safe pours
Price ceilings never get tested
Higher-margin styles never get a chance
Learning happens slowly — or not at all
And once busy season starts, most wine programs freeze for months.
That’s where the real loss happens:
not in one bad wine, but in months of missed iteration.
Chu’s Wine was built around a simple idea:
BTG profit comes from iteration speed, not perfect upfront selection.
Instead of asking restaurants to “get it right the first time,” we remove the risk that prevents experimentation in the first place.
We help restaurants design a seasonal BTG special menu tailored to:
Neighborhood
Cuisine
Guest price sensitivity
Dining patterns
There is no one-size-fits-all BTG list.
Restaurants begin with just a few bottles, not cases.
This immediately removes:
Inventory lock-in
Fear of slow movers
Pressure to “make it work” even when it doesn’t
We look at:
What guests actually order
How pricing is received
Which styles move — and which don’t
Not what should sell.
What does sell.
On a cadence that fits the restaurant:
Every two weeks for faster-moving programs
Monthly for steadier ones
We review performance and proactively suggest:
Replacements for underperformers
Adjustments to style or price
Opportunities to push higher-margin BTG options
Underperforming BTG wines don’t linger for months.
They get swapped out quickly.
Over time, the restaurant converges toward its optimal BTG mix — one that actually matches its clientele.
This approach unlocks multiple profit levers at once:
Higher pricing confidence (often +$2–$4 per glass)
Better guest acceptance
Faster learning cycles
No inventory risk
No added operational workload
Most importantly, it prevents BTG programs from getting stuck.
Every month a restaurant waits:
They run a suboptimal BTG mix
They lose another iteration cycle
They lock in conservative pricing
And BTG learning doesn’t compound retroactively.
Once a season passes, that upside is gone.
Most restaurants don’t underperform on BTG because they lack taste or expertise.
They underperform because the traditional model:
Punishes experimentation
Locks in guesses
Consumes time and cash
Chu’s Wine replaces that model with one built for speed, flexibility, and real-world learning — at no cost to the restaurant.
If there’s no inventory risk, no setup cost, and no added workload —
does it make sense to keep guessing for another season?