Rules of Thumb for Liquor/Beer/Wine Costs

Rules of Thumb for Beverage Costs: How's Your Restaurant Doing?

Although every restaurant is unique, industry rules of thumb can
provide a valuable starting point for evaluating and
understanding how your restaurant is performing.

While there will always be exceptions, here are a few beverage
cost rules of thumb that we've found to be quite reliable over
the years when working with operators who have collectively
managed thousands of diverse restaurant operations.

Alcoholic beverage costs: Liquor, beer and wine costs will vary
among restaurants due to a number of factors but here are typical
costs in percentages:

* Liquor - 18 percent to 20 percent.
* Bar consumables - 4 percent to 5 percent as a percent of liquor
sales (includes mixes, olives, cherries and other food products
that are used or consumed exclusively at the bar).
* Bottled beer - 24 percent to 28 percent (assumes mainstream
domestic beer, cost percent of specialty and imported bottled
beer will generally be higher).
* Draft beer - 15 percent to 18 percent (assumes mainstream
domestic beer, cost percent of specialty and imported draft beer
will generally be higher).
* Wine - 35 percent to 45 percent (the cost percentages of wine can
vary dramatically from restaurant to restaurant depending
primarily on the type of wines served. Generally, the higher the
price per bottle, the higher the cost percentage).

NOTE - All percentages above are the ratio of each item's cost
divided by its sales, not total sales or total beverage sales.
For example, liquor cost percentages above are based on liquor
costs divided by liquor sales.

-taken from RestaurantOwner.com