Whenever I buy a soda from a vending machine, it comes out very cold, like it should be.
But whenever I buy a soda at a gas station or convience store, well, darn it, it just isn’t cold enough. And it doesn’t matter where it is I buy one. Aren’t they running those refridgeration units a maximum output or what?
I even try to grab a soda that’s back on the shelf a bit, because I figure it won’t be exposed to the outside air as much from the opening and closing of the cooler doors. But, no dice. Do they need to turn the temp down on those things, or is the entire store cooler theory flawed?
Coolers and refrigerators absorb the majority of their heat when the door opens and closes. In a store cooler a relatively large door is opened and closed often. In a soda machine a very small opening is opened occasionally.
Place the cans in a water bath that is both chilled and circulated. If a salt water solution is used the temp. could be brought down to below the freezing point of water.
If they used a chest type cooler that opened on the top, little cold air would be lost every time the door was opened. There’s probably some reason why they don’t do this, but I can’t think of it right now.
Some places DO in fact do this, with promotional brand-supplied types of coolers. They’re generally waist-high, and not like a picnic cooler at all. They’re not electrical; they depend on the ice that the store usually sells, too. Yeah, they keep cold, well, at least until the undertrained employee neglects the ice long enough.
Here in the south, it is common for convenience stores to just stick a huge tub full of ice near the front of the store and keep it stocked with a variety of drinks. Result, ice cold drinks all day for the cost of maybe 15-20 bags of ice.
I would like to take this opportunity to complain that not only don’t convenience store coolers keep soda cool enough, those darned plastic bottles are awful! The soda is always WAY too warm for me. I want glass bottles back!