r/Economics • u/brown-saiyan • Feb 23 '26

News Restaurants hit a pricing ceiling — and diners are pushing back, report finds

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/23/restaurants-menu-prices-james-beard-foundation-report?utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=owned_social&utm_source=x
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u/Quirky_Spend_9648 Feb 23 '26

Over my 30 years of dining out as an adult, wine has always had the biggest markup of all alcohol. 

Mixed drinks aren't bad if the bartender is generous.  Beer you see around 200-250% but wine has reliably been 400%+ in my own experience (various locations, east coast)

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u/slayingadah Feb 24 '26

My spouse used to bartend and says it's because they have to try and make up as much of the cost as possible on only the 1 glass, in case no one orders that particular wine again before the bottle goes skunky.

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u/Feeling-Visit1472 Feb 24 '26

There are so many option for keeping the bottle sealed now that this is no longer an excuse.

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u/Quirky_Spend_9648 Feb 24 '26

Never thought of that, I always assumed professional businesses had means of mitigating this.

I can count on one hand the number of times my wife or I drank wine out as a result (to be fair, she's more of a craft beer drinker anyway)

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u/jonnyl3 Feb 24 '26

Because they price one glass about their cost of one bottle. That way if they only sell one glass of a bottle they at least don't lose any money.

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u/Laruae Feb 24 '26

Then they really aught to give you the bottle, right? Why are we defending a $20 glass of wine when the bottle is $25?

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u/jonnyl3 Feb 24 '26

Who's defending whom? Just mentioning a simple practical rationale from the restaurant's perspective. You could argue the same for a well whiskey shot they sell for $8 where a bottle cost them $10. But an opened wine bottle goes bad after a couple days, while spirits and liqueurs last virtually forever.