How should a restaurant handle large parties bringing multiple bottles?

Cap the bottles. Do not raise the fee.

The scenario operators fear is real. A table of eight arrives with six bottles. Every seat is occupied for two and a half hours, the kitchen produces eight covers, the floor team works the table like any other, and beverage contribution reads under two hundred dollars. On a full night when every seat carries an opportunity cost, no amount of goodwill makes that check acceptable.

The answer is a policy, not a price. Two bottles per table, three for a party of six or more, whatever fits the room and the concept. A cap addresses the exact situation that keeps operators up at night and costs nothing at every other table in the dining room.

Raising the corkage fee to solve it is a blunt instrument aimed at a narrow target, and it hits every two top in the room on the way there. The couple who brought a single bottle to celebrate an anniversary pays for the party of eight, and they are the guests most likely to buy a second bottle from the list.

State the cap plainly wherever the policy lives. Guests who plan around wine will respect a clear limit. They will not respect a fee that reads as a penalty.