Things I thought about were: insurance probably includes any state mandated health care coverages, plus management health plans. A state like California can skew the “average” statistics a ton. We need the standard deviation stuff to see how much it goes up and down from that average.
Rent and fees: this is going to include outrageous costs like airport concessions, stadiums, casinos, amusement parks and all that. Again, I can see the averages being skewed off by the high cost places. That said, 14.5% does seem awfully high for that segment of the food business. Maybe those fees include gratuities to local building departments in places like Chicago, Philly and New York. Heck, ‘protection’ plans may even be in the insurance figures.
