restaurants vastly inflated pricing structure.........

[Kcwhippet]

Way oversimplified there as2324. Of course no one should expect to pay supermarket prices for a steak in a restaurant. For the food you get in a restaurant you're paying an amortized part of the cost of equipping a full kitchen, buying all the meats, the seafood, the vegetables, the fresh herbs, the spices as well as the salaries of the chef and all his (or her) minions. For the wine, the restaurant pays for a (usually) small room to store the wine, generally inexpensive stemware and for the wholesale cost of the wine. In a "fancy" restaurant you can include the salary of a sommelier or wine steward, which isn't all that high - trust me on that. So, how do you justify a run-of-the-mill, nothing special restaurant charging $27 for a bottle of Kendall-Jackson Vintmers Reserve Chardonnay that they bought for about $5? So, you're are definitely correct that the restaurants are in business to make money, but the prices charged don't justify the costs to the restaurant. However, what possible costs could the restaurant have incurred, plus their profit, for charging $22 over their cost for the wine? BTW, if I could walk into a supermarket and purchase a $10 steak for $30 and get all I'm getting in a restaurant, I would gladly pay it. The extra $20 would get me a trained chef to prepare the steak as well as all the sides and the service, but it won't happen.