Richmond —

There is a version of this list for every state, and in Virginia most operators can name two of the six. The other four are the ones that end up in a hearing.

$48,000

Monthly food sales above this figure and, as of July 1, 2026, your food-to-beverage ratio requirement disappears entirely. HB 975 built the tiers around this number.

If you are consistently near it, know exactly where you are each month. The difference between $47,000 and $49,000 is the difference between a compliance calculation and no calculation at all.

30% and 45%

The two tiers below the top.

Between $25,000 and $47,999 in monthly food sales, you need 30% of combined food and mixed beverage revenue to come from food. Between $4,000 and $24,999, it is 45%, dropping to 30% for rooms with fewer than 30 table seats and an occupancy load under 60.

Note what is not in the calculation: beer and wine. The ratio is food against mixed beverages. A strong wine program does nothing for this number, which surprises people every year.

$4,000, and $2,000 inside it

The floor beneath the tiers. A mixed beverage licensee is expected to do at least $4,000 in monthly food sales, with at least $2,000 of it in meals featuring substantial entrees.

These are two separate tests. A bar doing $4,600 a month in wings, fries and shareables can clear the first and fail the second. If your food program leans small plates, this is the number that will catch you, and it is the one almost nobody tracks.

Table seats versus counter seats

Not a dollar figure, and the one people are least likely to know exists.

HB 975 added a requirement that a mixed beverage licensee maintain as many seats at tables as it has seats at counters. A 24-seat bar rail with 12 table seats is out of compliance on that provision no matter how good the food numbers look.

Go count your seats as they are installed today, not as they were drawn on the original plan. Rooms drift. Someone pulls two tables to make space for a service station and nobody logs it.

60 days

Virginia ABC’s stated average for processing a retail license application, and the number that should govern your opening timeline.

It is an average, not a maximum, and the clock does not start until the application is complete. If you are signing a lease with a five-week opening plan and no license in hand, you are planning to open dry.

The same number matters for transfers. Buying an existing restaurant is not the same as inheriting its license.

$0

The amount of your to-go cocktail revenue that counts toward the food requirement.

Cocktails-to-go became a permanent revenue line for a lot of Virginia operators, and a fair number quietly assumed it helped their ratio. It does not, and ABC expects it tracked separately from other sales. If your point of sale is not splitting it out, your compliance math is wrong today.

---

The pattern

Five of these six are decided by how your point of sale is configured, not by how your restaurant performs. Food, nonalcoholic, beer, wine, mixed beverages and cocktails-to-go need to be six clean categories. If they are not, you cannot prove which tier you are in, and the burden of proof is yours.

The sixth is a tape measure and ten minutes counting chairs.

Published guidance has been changing faster than the explainer pages this year, so check the date on anything you are relying on, including this. Run the arithmetic yourself first, so you know what you are actually asking about.