What is the mark up on drinks ?

[TheHaitian]

At Bars? Clubs? Lounge? Hotels?

Lordy!!!!

My wife and I were in NYC Friday night at this lounge to celebrate her cousin making partner. Since I was on Vicodin from my Surgery on Thursday I was not drinking and since she was the designated driver she wasn't either.

So 4 ginger ale drinks came to $40 + tip. So $10 for a drink that I was done with within 2 sips (mostly ice) and no alcohol. I wonder how much was the tab for the folks actually ordering alcohol.

I remember in July at my work conference the hotel bar was charging $15 for 1 beer, it was cheaper for me to buy a 6 packs and go up to my hotel room. Since we were all stuck at the hotel they made a killing on all of us... I limited my intake to 1 beer (the shocker of the first one was enough to make me want to stay SOBER!!!)

Seriously; at that cost I do not miss the bar scene. You can easily spend $100 on drinks in 1 night at that rate. Talk about highway robbery!

[ArchietheDragon]

4 ginger ales probably cost the bar $0.25 in direct costs. 

[Deleted]

From Jon Taffer host of bar rescue (great show by the way):

Product Costs
While operators often talk about “food and beverage costs,” they do need to be considered individually. Beverage cost is really five combined costs:

Liquor: Typical cost is 17 percent.
Bottled Beer: Typical cost is 23 – 25 percent.
Draft Beer: Typical cost is 21 – 22 percent.
Wine: Typical cost is 30 percent.
Soft Drinks: Typical cost is 6 – 8 percent.
When it all washes out, based upon differing sales mixes, prices and costs, a typical (combined) beverage cost is 21 percent. When your beverage cost goes above 21 percent of your beverage sales, something is very wrong.


www.nightclub.com/bar-management/best-in-bar-management/managing-big-three

[Deleted]

It's easy to rip off a bunch of drunks.    Although, part of the reasoning may be to keep people from getting annihilated in the first place.  If I was a bar owner, I wouldn't be offering 50 cent shots even if I profited at that rate.

[hoops902]

You're paying to hang out at the place essentially.  That's why dive bars have cheap beer, the premium to hang out there isn't much.

[Value Buy]

Haitian, you work in the retail grocery industry. You know what the cost is on soda and beer and wine.

As far as NYC prices in the downtown bars, they have always been way too high, but New Yorkers and tourists are more than happy to pay the prices.

Any decent restaurant marks up the wine by 300% even in flyover land.

[gooddecisions]

In my drinking days, I only went to places with awesome happy hours...as in $.25-$1 beers or $2 highballs. And, if happy hour didn't go until at least 7, they didn't get our business. A quick text blast out to all my friends changed any dive bar to a fun bar. In my glory days, I could round up 50 people in a moments notice. Once happy hour was over, we'd bounce on over to the "in" place and not need to order anything.

On the rare occasion we went out later, we just drank up at our apartments before heading out and stashed an airplane bottle or two in our purses. Ahh, the good ol' days. Granted, this is stuff you can't really get away with the more mature you are. Well, I suppose you could...

[wyouser]

Sigh........the memories. In those college days of old we used to hit this "dive" (it really was, downstairs underground extending even under part of the sidewalks) called Lola's Last Step". Beer was 25 cents a glass and pitchers of beer were a buck with the 13th free on Wednesday nights. They made a song later about that...We're gonna Party like its 1969" ..cause that's about when it was!  Anyway, information we had then from Schmidt Brewing Company indicated they needed 2 cents a bottle to cover the costs of making the beer. A six pack in 1969 cost $1.10 a six pack. The difference then was state tax, federal tax, shipping and profit for the handlers/sellers.

[gooddecisions]

Dec 15, 2014 15:29:41 GMT -5 wyouser said:

Sigh........the memories. In those college days of old we used to hit this "dive" (it really was, downstairs underground extending even under part of the sidewalks) called Lola's Last Step". Beer was 25 cents a glass and pitchers of beer were a buck with the 13th free on Wednesday nights. They made a song later about that...We're gonna Party like its 1969" ..cause that's about when it was!  Anyway, information we had then from Schmidt Brewing Company indicated they needed 2 cents a bottle to cover the costs of making the beer. A six pack in 1969 cost $1.10 a six pack. The difference then was state tax, federal tax, shipping and profit for the handlers/sellers.

My 25 cent dive bar happy hour was 2000-2005. The cups were only 8 oz, but that was fine because we could order as many as we wanted. They also offered 10 cent tacos. Then they upped beers to 50 cents and now they are $2. Happy hour is until 9:00 pm, too. Of course, you have to be content with Coors Light, PBR or Miller High Life. High balls are all rail liquor.