“He wasn’t down $2k I’m sure it was more like $400 before markup. I once had a big bottle of champagne i got at my liquor store in New Hampshire for $300 saw the same bottle at a restaurant in Manhattan a year later for $2800 and you had to be a party of 8 or more to order it. Markup is huge.”
I was talking to restaurateur one day and found out a very large part of that markup is tax and is forced on them by the state. That guy actually had a retail license as well as the restaurant and he could sell me stuff to take away for a third the price it was if delivered to your table.
The federal and state beverage taxes are based on alcoholic content. So, a $20 wine and a $2,000 wine with the same alcoholic content would have the same beverage tax. If a $2,000 wine is sold for $20 the sales tax would be based upon $20. So the tax argument is moot.