Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Bar Revenue and Continuation Benchmark
Drinking places serving alcoholic beverages, from neighborhood taverns to cocktail lounges and clubs.
Average Bar Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
Drinking places serving alcoholic beverages hold their own 2022 Economic Census category; its published establishment count and combined receipts give the average below.
≈$820,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
40,911
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $33.7 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $33.7 billion in combined annual revenue divided by 40,911 employer establishments works out to $820,000. This is an average per establishment, and averages get pulled up by large, busy operations, so a typical business may sit below it.
Scope: Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) (NAICS 722410). Employer establishments only: owner-operated businesses with no paid employees are not in these figures.
Bars monetize pour margins and late hours rather than kitchen output, and the category spans neighborhood taverns through nightclubs. Places earning most revenue from food are counted as restaurants instead, so this average is for drink-led businesses.
In many cities the alcohol license is a separately transferable asset with its own local market; its cost, terms and transfer rules are questions for the specific jurisdiction, and no national receipts figure reflects them. Establishments that serve substantial food are classified by their primary activity, so a gastropub may be counted as a restaurant instead.
Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed July 2026
Where these figures come from
Data Source Notice
This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.
Employer Establishments at Year Five Endpoint only
Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages), NAICS 7224, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.
64.0%the year-five count as a share of the starting count
Intermediate annual counts do not form a consistent survival curve, so they are not connected as a year-by-year trend. Results across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts ranged from 51.0 to 64.0 percent, so treat this as a directional benchmark rather than a precise forecast. This benchmark covers Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages), NAICS 7224, as a whole. This benchmark covers the exact four-digit industry group, but it counts establishments by age rather than tracking the same ones, so it is a continuation indicator and not a survival rate. How this is measured
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Behind a bar, payroll buys coverage hours more than headcount; the verified share below is the category number.
| Cost line | Share of receipts |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈29% |
Payroll share of receipts, Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages), United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 29.0 percent of every revenue dollar in this category goes to annual payroll. As the census defines it, payroll includes wages, salaries, reported tips, commissions and bonuses; it excludes employer-paid benefits, employer payroll taxes, contractor payments and owner compensation. Treat it as one verified anchor, not a full labor cost breakdown. Payroll share sets employee pay against receipts; beverage cost bears on gross margin but is not part of this ratio, and a two-bartender room can clear what a full kitchen brigade cannot. Reported tips are inside this figure, since the census counts tips reported to the employer as payroll; owner compensation, employer-paid benefits and payroll taxes are the parts that sit outside it.
This is not total labor cost or profit margin.
How to read this number
Position Within Its Comparison Group Computed from official data
Where this category sits among 8 food service categories in the same 2022 Economic Census release. Ranks and the group median are computed on exact values, before the rounding used above.
| Measure | This category | Group median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue per employer establishment | $822,601 | $1,134,467 | 6 of 8 |
| Payroll share of receipts | 29.38% | 28.31% | 4 of 8 |
| Employer establishments | 40,911 | 35,498.5 | 4 of 8 |
Position among 8 food service categories, 2022 Economic Census, employer establishments only.
This category ranks 6th of 8 by average annual revenue per employer establishment. It ranks 4th of 8 by employer establishment count and 4th of 8 by payroll share. Payroll equals 29.38 percent of receipts here, 1.06 percentage points above the group median of 28.31 percent. A higher or lower position is not a measure of profit or of business quality: the census reports receipts and payroll only.
Compared With Similar Business Types Computed from official data
The 4 categories closest to this one by average revenue inside the same comparison group.
| Census category | Revenue per establishment | Payroll share | Establishments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) (this page) | $822,601 | 29.38% | 40,911 |
| Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars | $803,603 | 27.25% | 78,110 |
| Caterers | $1,030,783 | 30.88% | 12,579 |
| Cafeterias, Grill Buffets, and Buffets | $1,238,151 | 25.32% | 4,590 |
| Limited-Service Restaurants | $1,323,036 | 26.12% | 271,243 |
Nearest categories by average revenue, 2022 Economic Census, employer establishments only.
This category reports lower revenue per employer establishment than Caterers, Cafeterias, Grill Buffets, and Buffets and Limited-Service Restaurants, and higher revenue than Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars. It contains more employer establishments than two of the four categories shown. Every figure in this table comes from the same 2022 Economic Census release and the same employer establishment population, so the columns are directly comparable.
Beyond the Benchmark BusinessNES analysis
What the census figures leave out about drinking places, and what to look at instead.
What the numbers do not show
License conditions shape this business more than anything in the receipts. Closing hours, capacity limits and whether food must be served are set locally and can change what a site is worth without any change in demand.
Pour cost discipline never reaches this number. Two bars with identical sales keep very different amounts depending on measured pours, wastage and how tightly stock is counted.
Operator lens
- The room earns in a narrow window. Most of the week's revenue arrives across a few evenings, so the fixed cost of the space is carried by a small number of hours.
- Regular inventory counts expose waste and over-pouring. Beverage cost is the one major line an operator can influence weekly, and the difference between a counted bar and an uncounted one shows up quickly.
Questions to ask before starting or buying
- What exactly does the license permit? Hours, capacity, outdoor areas and food requirements are all conditions, and they do not always transfer unchanged.
- How is stock counted and by whom? Ask for the last several inventory counts and the variance. An operation without them is running blind on its main cost.
- What share of sales is beer, spirits and food? The mix determines both margin and the equipment the site needs.
- Does the trade depend on one night or one event? A room that lives on a weekly trivia night or a nearby venue is exposed to a change it does not control.
- What condition are the cellar and lines in? Cooling, gas and line cleaning are unglamorous and are where quality complaints usually start.
Explore More on BusinessNES
More BusinessNES guides and rankings, plus neighboring benchmark pages built from the same verified data.
Sources and Methodology
Every figure on this page is bound to a published source, and each figure's own source line names that source precisely: the 2022 Economic Census for counts, receipts and payroll, and the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics for the industry continuation benchmark. Where a page shows a sector survival curve instead, that series comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
BusinessNES performs the arithmetic on those published figures and nothing else. Receipts are divided by establishments, and payroll by receipts. The age-five establishment count is divided by the age-zero establishment count for the same four-digit industry group, then repeated across five age-zero cohorts to give a reference and a range. This category's share of its industry group, along with the ranks, medians and nearest peers in the comparison sections, comes from the same published tables. Every one of them is recomputed from the sealed source files at each release and blocks publication if it does not match. Results are rounded and marked approximate. The reference year is 2022 for revenue and payroll; treat every figure as a baseline, not today's market.
Category scope matters: these figures cover Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) (NAICS 722410), employer establishments only. The scope note near the top of the page explains what that includes and excludes for this business type. Establishments that serve food alongside drinks are classified by their primary activity, so a gastropub may sit in a restaurant category instead.
Full method, sources and limits
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