This Is How You Close Out a Restaurant
You’ve got 1,300 bottles of wine on your hands. Your restaurant is closing in a week. What are you gonna do?
If you’re Manhattan’s 'Inoteca, you end an 11-year run—practically a century in NYC restaurant years—in a blaze of boozy glory. Its wine director took to Reddit to tell folks that all the vino had to go, deeply discounted, at up to 80% off.
How would ‘Inoteca’s fans, who have long flipped for the restaurant’s truffled egg toasts and huge wine cellar, react?
Well, people love a bargain as much as they love to show their loyalty, even if it means standing in the cold:
Photo credit: 'Inoteca
They got in line. They waited. And waited. (Some, for hours.)
Photo credit: shannapacifico, Instagram
And then they feasted. “My heart is breaking a little. Best job I’ve ever had,” wrote the former ‘Inoteca employee who snapped this shot:
Photo credit: isabellemelody, Instagram
And, of course, they drank. The’96 Barolo pictured below retails for $97, meaning many Manhattan restaurants would sell it for around $300 a pop. At 50% off? We’d spring for it, too.
Photo credit: cm_ceandrade, Instagram
Rare bottles were dragged up from the cellar:
Photo credit: ‘Inoteca
Onetime ‘Inoteca wine director Jeffrey Tascarella delivered a pretty elegy about the wine to Eater, saying that during his tenure, “Wine was everywhere, in any nook we could find. Cases of Jeroboams and rarities were stacked floor to ceiling, and guests would only order the wines that lay at the bottom.” It wasn’t always a safety first situation, apparently: “One night, an avalanche of La Spinetta Barbaresco rained down upon my head and smashed my eye socket.”
Yikes! But the last hurrah was a success.
Photo credit: Luxettes, Instagram
There was, of course, the requisite Twitter hashtag, #inotecalastsip:
Food writers made final cameos:
Celebrity chefs sent their regrets:
And the restaurant itself was wowed:
(We did try to get a restaurant rep on the phone to hear about all the chaos, but we imagine they’re sleeping off their hangovers.)
Props to ‘Inoteca for throwing a multi-day party for their fans (a tradition with a long history), and for going out with a bang. Everyone else, everywhere, take note: this is how you make an exit.
