My analysis will be made on The River Café located in Brooklyn just under the Brooklyn Bridge and P. J. Clarke’s located in Midtown Manhattan. The River Café is a fine dining restaurant that opened in 1977 and P.J. Clarke’s Restaurant is considered a casual dining place open since 1884. There is only one location for the River Café while P.J.’s has
At first glance, you can clearly see that the River Café’s menu is substantially larger than P.J.’s menu. River Café has over 600 bottles listed and PJ has a mere 36 listed. I knew there was going to be a big difference in the number of wine bottles between the two restaurants but I was shocked that River Café had sixteen times the number of bottles.
Second, they both had bottles from France and Italy coming from Bordeaux, Loire Valley, Rhone Valley, and Burgundy just to name a few. Although P.J.’s did not have prices listed next to their wines, I’m guessing the prices were not as high as they were in River Café’s where their cheapest glass was sixteen dollars.
Third, I don’t know if the physical menu at the restaurant has the title page but as soon as you open the link to River Café’s menu, you are proudly shown the names of the wine director, head sommelier and three sommeliers. P.J.’s menu does not have any of that. I tried getting some information on how they choose their wines but they do not have anything posted about it. My best guestimate is that they either have a part-time sommelier or their alcohol and beverage personnel are very well educated.
I did notice some similarities with them. The first being that they both have wines from France and Italy but River Café has a lot more from the different regions of France like the Loire Valley, Burgundy, and Alsace, just to name a few. In addition, River Café has at least two wines from each appellation, i.e., Cote de Beaune, Cote de Nuits, Cote Chalonnaise. P.J. mostly carries wines from France; being the Loire and Rhone Valleys, and United States; Sonoma and Napa Valleys.
The second similarity I see is that they both sell wine by the glass but P.J. only sells one bottle for each type of wine with a total of ten bottles, whereas River Café has a total of thirty-two bottles served by the glass. This is not surprising due to the fact that River Café has such a huge inventory.
Looking more at the menus, I did see some differences as well. River Café has a total of sixty-two bottles of Premier Cru and Grand Cru combined. Not surprising for such an extraordinary list of wines. I was shocked when I looked at P.J.’s list and it had one red wine from Burgundy of Premier Cru.
The other difference that caught my eye was the prices on the menu. P.J. did not have prices on their menu so I cannot comment on them but River Café did. Their prices are very high, to put it mildly, ranging from $57.00 to $14,000.00 a bottle. Yes, that IS three zeros after the comma.
Looking at their histories, both have been around for a long time. While River Café is a fine dining establishment, P.J.’s is more of a burgers-and-beer-after-work place. I would like to visit River Café one day for the experience. The view from the window overlooking the East River looks romantic and that is something I’d like my date to experience. I would equally like to visit P.J.’s because it has that ‘just want to come in for a beer and burger’ atmosphere.
References
P.J. Clarke’s Restaurant and Bar at Third Avenue. PJ Clarke’s. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from http://pjclarkes.com/menu/third-avenue/.
Rivercafe-wine-list-022720. Rivercafe.com. (2020). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://rivercafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/rivercafe-wine-list-022720.pdf.
