What’s a reasonable wine mark-up in restaurants? It seems like generally I see roughly two times or two and a half times the restaurant’s cost (which is wholesale, not the retail price). Some of this mark-up can be attributed to the cost of temperature-controlled cellaring, serving, decanting (oh, well, sometimes), stemware, washing the stemware, etc. But really, wine mark-up is where many restaurants make their real money.

A lot of places don't have a consistent mark-up across the board. It's a sliding-scale strategy whereby less expensive wines carry a higher mark-up and the most expensive bottles are more modestly marked up. Same with food, meaning the food cost for a $20 chicken dish is actually $3, but the $35 rack of lamb costs the restaurant $20. Food cost is determined as an average of all dishes.

So, if a restaurant pays $6 for a bottle of wine, it could command a wine list price of somewhere between $12 and $18. A wine that costs the restaurant $60 might be priced at $120. Thus, the better "deals" may be had at the higher price points on the wine list.

This all make sense? Anyone have strategies for getting a good deal on restaurant wines?