How do I price drinks for a restaurant?

Question

I know how to figure my liquor cost, how do I figure the cost for ice and mixers?

Answer 1

When it comes to figuring drink costs first check your competitive set and then you should try to tier it to a specific number of levels. Dont worry about ice, straws and mixers as they are insignificant.

TIER LEVELS: This is a standard that a restaurant will set up that will categorize you drinks. For example, all "house" or "rail" drinks will be the same price, all domestic beer will be the same price, all "call" drinks ( Jack Daniels, Bacardi, Absolut, etc) will be the same price, all house wine will be the same price and so on. Here are some standard tier category names: Doimestic Beer, Import Beer, Microbrews, Rail Drinks, Call Drinks, Top Shelf Drinks, House Martini, Call Martini, Top Shelf Martini, Frozen Drinks, Virgin Drinks, nad so on and so on.

COMPETITIVE SET: This is the group of restaurants in your area that you will compete with mostly. Go "shop" them by visiting their establishments and ordering some drinks and asking some questions. Some pricing information can be found on menus. Take notes and see where there tiers are falling. You want to be competitive, meaning that you don't want to be too high or too low from your competitors.

I hope this helps!

ddougee @ yahoo

Answer 2

ok, this is actually really easy. you do not need to figure the cost of ice and mixers. they are so small that it is kind of pointless. first figure out your cost of alcohol per drink. to do this, you need to figure out how many ounces you are putting in every drink. for this we will just assume a normal drink has 1 ounce. take the cost of the bottle and divide the number of ounces into that. if it is a liter, then 33. if it is a 750ml, then 25. for example...

the bottle cost is $33.00 / 33 shots = $1.00 per ounce. you are not going to serve a drink for $1.00. the normal markup is 4 times.

$1.00 x 4 = $4.00 that should be the cost of the drink. if you live in a heavily populated area, such as ny, chicago, etc, you can markup even more. if you need help with anything else, email me... [e-mail]

Answer 3

ice would not be accounted for. the ice machine however should go under equipment. the soda is a non issue as youre only using about a pennies with of product per drink and should add maybe a half percent to your beverage cost. the other mixers such as juice and milk are straight cost items.

Answer 4

You charge whatever you like, most restaurants do! It still iritates me that you think it's perfectly acceptable to charge your punters 3 or 4 times the retail price for a cheap bottle of plonk. It's a total rip-off and makes a mockery of the trade. If I go to a good establishment I expect quality food and wine to complement the meal, I don't mind paying the premium. Serve me something I can buy at the supermarket and your insulting your clientelle. Your customer won't return or recommend you. Be warned.

Answer 5

the charges are not indexed via fact of liquor costs. If alcohol is going up in cost, then the corporation might desire to regulate the charges for this reason. The exception to that's "happy Hour" Menus, which will checklist their specials. in lots of cases "happy hour" specials are made with nicely liquor and grant kinfolk beers or a house wine. Alcohol is costly, and in case you're ordering in a cafe, you're procuring the drink, all the ingredients (in a margarita there are a minimum of three, greater despite the fact that if that's top rate), the guy bringing it to you, the hostess who sat you, and the dishwasher who cleans your dishes once you're by way of. The eating place industry is a complicated one, yet once you prefer to call Chile's or pink Lobster's company workplaces, they might provide you some greater information.

Answer 6

On top of cost per unit don't forget that some states tax by unit sold!

Answer 7

Compare with rivals.