Current Louisville Dining Costs

After reading the recent topic about the new Seviche I thought I'd get your opinion. I recently emailed some on line menus to my brother in Carmel California (known to be a pricey area) so he could make some selections on where he'd like to dine when he comes into town this spring. He wrote back, "WOW! West Coast pricing has finally hit Louisville!"
What do you think? Are we getting a bit out of line with our area demographics?

i think the rising costs of product
has finally caught up with louisville

It's a reflection of the quality of food people get here in L'ville.

Thank You!!!!! You get what you pay for. Louisville is serving more then fried green tomatoes and grits these days. I was born and raised in California and visit my family often. I'm amazed where Louisville is today, as far as the food world. If you want payless for shoes or macys, you get what you pay for.

There is a higher tariff to be paid for quality ingredients and it is reflected in menu pricing. Everyone assumes the farmer/chef relationship is great for business, supports the local farmer, etc...... but most local produced items, athough usally much better quality, ain't cheap as opposed to what is available through most purveyors.

Also, wholesale food prices have jumped considerably in the past few months. Anyone who goes to the grocery on a regular basis should be able to notice that.

Eventually some of this has to be passed along to the consumer....

yet, selling me a bottle of wine for $30 that the restaurant paid $9 for has nothing to do with the cost of better ingredients.

kudos to the Bristol for not gouging wine drinkers.

Cost of ingredients - yes they are going up. With the cost of gas at $3.20/gal what do you expect? Has anyone seen what is happening at the retail level pricing at the grocery store? Some items have doubled for the same reason.

Are we fairly price - absolutely! you get what you pay for. There is always a cheaper alternative. In sugar there is cane sugar, granulated sugar and beat sugar, 3 levels. Beat sugar is much cheaper. In beef there is commercial/utility, select, choice, prime. Utility (cow) is much cheaper.
You get what you pay for!

As for wine - the rule of thumb has always been a high markup. The restaurant pays the same thing you pay retail, they have to mark it up to make a profit and cover their cost. What the Bristol is doing is great, but as was stated in the article, if it doesn't work they will go back after a year.

[Robin Garr]

The restaurant pays the same thing you pay retail, they have to mark it up to make a profit and cover their cost. What the Bristol is doing is great, but as was stated in the article, if it doesn't work they will go back after a year.

Kurt, I think you inadvertently misstated yourself. Restaurants pay wholesale, as wine retailers do. Typically - although it can vary with quantity or special deals - the rule of thumb is that a $7 wholesale will retail at $10 and sell on a restaurant list at $20, more or less.

The Bristol is buying at wholesale and selling at retail, accepting a small profit rather than the usual large one. I'm not sure which article you're talking about, but the one I wrote quotes Doug Gossman as committing to do it for a year and holding open the possibility that they'll continue it thereafter, depending on how the numbers look.

Bottom line, though, the 2x retail (3x wholesale) markup on restaurant wine lists is a de facto standard, and it's widely accepted in the business. There are a number of arguments to justify this, and certainly the costs of cellaring, inventory, wine lists, glassware and wine service do make some level of markup seem fair. It's also a fact that liquor markups in general have to be viewed as part of the overall picture of managing an eatery. The convention of getting a decent profit here helps make some tighter calls on the food service side that diners may not casually recognize. Liquor/wine markups are only one small part of the bottom line, but if they mark the difference between success and failure, then I'm willing to pay the wine markup as part of the deal.

When high-end spots start going beyond the standard, though - and plenty of well-known Louisville eateries do - then it's time to start naming names.

As for wine - the rule of thumb has always been a high markup. The restaurant pays the same thing you pay retail, they have to mark it up to make a profit and cover their cost. What the Bristol is doing is great, but as was stated in the article, if it doesn't work they will go back after a year.

I don't understand what "costs" are associated with the sale of wine that necessitate a 400% mark-up?

Is Carraba's using Riedel or paying a Master of Wine sommelier 100K per year to help folks choose a Mondavi merlot?

Is beer sold at a similar mark-up?

Is beer sold at a similar mark-up?

I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it but realistically the answer is probably yes. Figure than a beer you pay about $1 bottle for at retail goes for around $3.50 or even $4 in a restaurant the mark-up on beer maybe even higher than wine. Of course if you get draft domestic beer the price is normally lower.

The restaurant pays the same thing you pay retail, they have to mark it up to make a profit and cover their cost. What the Bristol is doing is great, but as was stated in the article, if it doesn't work they will go back after a year.

Kurt, I think you inadvertently misstated yourself. Restaurants pay wholesale, as wine retailers do. ... (long backquote trimmed)

Actually restaurants are prohibited by Kentucky law from buying retail wine and spirits from places like Liquor Barn, but the price they charge, which is "retail" is usually the same or lower than what a restaurant or bar pays. I know at aprevious restaurant i worked at we could get the same bottles of wine $1 to $2 cheaper at Liqour Barn than we could through the wholesaler.

[Robin Garr]

Actually restaurants are prohibited by Kentucky law from buying retail wine and spirits from places like Liquor Barn, but the price they charge, which is "retail" is usually the same or lower than what a restaurant or bar pays. I know at aprevious restaurant i worked at we could get the same bottles of wine $1 to $2 cheaper at Liqour Barn than we could through the wholesaler.

Rick, absolutely restaurants can't legally buy from a retail wine shop (nor would it normally be sensible for them to do so). They have to buy wholesale, and under the law in most states (thanks to the lobbying efforts of the well-heeled wine/liquor distribution industry) the wholesalers have a monopoly.

As for the pricing issue you saw, this does happen quite often usually with low-end, mass-market wines. By buying in very large quantities, major retailers like Liquor Barn can make deals with the distributors that small clients can't match. I think if you go in to Liquor Barn and look over all their shelves, though, you'll find that - particularly for most lower-production, artisan wines - they're getting the same price as other retailers and restaurants do. It's just hard to generalize because there are a lot of exceptions.

Having been in the food service distribution business for the last 25 years I can tell you that ALL food products and paper products have taken a huge increase from the manufactors. As a distributor our cost continue to rise because of fuel, utilities, insurance and increases from our vendors. I also know that the restaurants like Seviche do have a choice to lower their standards. I can assure you Anthony and others in his league elect not to do that and I am glad. They buy the BEST and pay more for it because there is a difference. I have seen many a restaurant start lowering their standards because they are trying to control their food cost rather than raise their pricing on their menu and do what they did from the start. It really doesn't suprise me when they finally go out of business because things just aren't the quality they use to be. My hat goes off to those chefs like Anthony that pay the price for the best and keep their high standards. I also excpect to pay a little more for GREAT food and really enjoy it. I'd rather leave saying that was great than leave full and not very impressed with the food.

A good portion of it really boils down to "Petrol Dollars".


I believe Jerry mentioned it before, but that was a huge deciding factor in our switch from bottled Italian water to purchasing a reverse-osmosis water treatment machine.
The surcharges for the water started to go through the roof, and we couldn't find anyone to recycle the large amounts of bottles we were going through (shy of hauling truckloads off ourselves)... so the economically (and ecologically) sound decision was made to purify our own water in house.

We save money on the importing costs of the water, plus lessen our environmental impact with no need to recycle now, and we in turn are actually offering a better water product...
with local water sources.


Out side of water, we pay a premium to source the best possible food stuffs we can procure.

A majority of our produce comes from the Chef's Garden in northern Ohio. (They're not cheap - but the best you can get shipped to your door, hands down!)
We source meat and game from the best producers we can, and strive to find those who produce their products in a humane, sustainable manner.
We source as much seafood as possible through purveyors who work directly with day boat fisherman. In part so we can guarantee a quality product, but also know how it's handled - in small quantities, and with respect to the ecology of the species.

The amount of time and headache trying to source quality/sustainable products is daunting.
You can look online or make calls for hours and find nothing...
other times, you catch a break and find the beast product possible.

In particular, the bluefin tuna we are using now...
To quote Todd:
"We have been able to find a substainable outlet for bluefin tuna. Our contact at seafood.com hooked us up with the "tuna cowboys". These guys only use line means to catch their fish. Also the tuna must meet a certain weight to be caught. They also have a farm of tuna they use also. It is really great to see that we can learn from our mistakes and return wildlife to its original quality."


Seriously... this tuna yields us 95% usable product with 5% waste (sinew, blood-line and skin), and also yields around 40-50% of gorgeous toro (the prized fatty belly meat of tuna).
other sources we previously received from yielded 10-15+% waste and 10-30% toro; and to top it all the fish wasn't as nice of quality.
(remember consumers: you're paying for waste as much as usable product when it comes down to figuring food cost!)

That said, the premiums spent on these at wholesale level still have to be translated to the guest.
It's not like a deliberate price gouge by chefs and restaurateurs to make a quick buck.

We all can source products for $5 a pound.
and we can also source "the same" (i use this in name only) products for $30 a pound.

Can you taste the difference? Without a doubt.

Is it worth the cost for better quality, and above all - an environmentally and ecologically sound product? Absolutely!


Does the dining public necessarily always understand this? Not always, but i don't think a lot of chefs in town could sleep at night knowing they could have served a better product for only margins more... not too mention the good conscience of knowing by careful selection of sustainable products... you're helping make a difference to preserve species that may be gone before we know it.

All I know is a case of chicken (40lbs. leg and thigh meat) was $30 two years ago and now its in excess of $50.

Pricing is always an issue. You want to offer a value, but at the same time make a profit.
Food and transportation costs are making that tougher and tougher. But in the end, hopefully, you are getting what you pay for in most instances and you are not being gouged just because you can be gouged in the first place. I don't think pricing is out of line in most of the restaurants I frequent, and if something is too pricey/not a good value, then I'll probably not be going there terribly often. But across the board I think the prices are pretty reasonable, its the food costs that are getting out of hand...