A fair bit of the expense of a place is rent, if you can get a dive somewhere with low rent it cuts a chunk off your cost obv.
The place I partly "owned" tried to set a max of 35% of the menu price was their cost of food. The chef was constantly pushing that up and the GM was trying to lower it. The idea was to break even on food and make bank on liquor. Their problem was they "owned" a building larger than their clientel needed, a lot of empty seats on weekdays.
Markups on wine in the US are pretty obscene. A wine that retails for say $30 will cost a restaurant $20, and they will usually price it around 2x plus on the menu, so probably $70 on the menu. I see it a LOT higher than that at places, especially Champagne and especially if the place caters to upscale African Americans. Maybe they are less tuned into wine prices, don't know, but a place gets popular here and the wine list goes crazy. One of the local Persian places has "caught on" with AAs and their wine prices are not appealing, but they get packed into being almost a bar scene at night.
They also have a hookah bar upstairs, something not my style.
