# Are (some) soda fountains crawling with roaches?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 25, 2007, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939 "2007-08-25T23:10:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![iwakura43](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de0a6/32.png) [@iwakura43](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iwakura43)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939/1 "2007-08-25T23:10:02Z")

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From [this page](http://www.wisebread.com/tricks-of-the-trade-share-an-insiders-tip-about-your-profession):

> [@](#):
>
> Need a reason to stop drinking soda? Soda dispensers are the most disgusting things in the world. I used to work at a coffee shop and hooking up the dispenser was part of my daily routine. During every cleaning I would see an army of roaches pouring out of every hole of the dispenser. I guess sugar and moisture make the perfect roach bait. It was impossible to completely remove the sugar residue from the dispenser so no matter how hard I cleaned the darn thing, the roaches always came back.

Gross. Is this true / common / just BS?

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**Author:** ![Fetchund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b2d939/32.png) [@Fetchund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fetchund)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939/2 "2007-08-25T23:37:55Z")

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I don’t know what kind of dispenser they were using, but we sure got all the residue off of ours every night. All parts were pretty much removable and got soaked. (This was in the 70’s, so things may have changed)

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**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939/3 "2007-08-25T23:46:31Z")

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Well, if your restaurant has roaches, then the soda machine is one place they’ll find food, yeah. The nozzles come off and get soaked, but there’s still sugar on the internal spray part that doesn’t come off. Of course, if there are roaches in your restaurant, they’ll also be on the counters and in the booths and the floor and the bathroom and the light fixtures and under the fridge and in the grease trap and on the grills and pretty much anyplace that a person has ever touched, and many places we can’t. The soda machine is no \*more \*roach-attractant than any other spot.

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**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939/4 "2007-08-25T23:50:26Z")

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That person didn’t say where his coffee shop was, but I’ve worked in many different restaurants and bars in Washington state and I’ve never seen a single roach in any of them - even in the soda dispensers.

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**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-some-soda-fountains-crawling-with-roaches/416939/5 "2007-08-26T02:15:14Z")

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What kind of coffee shop has a soda fountain?