This is not true where I live, except for locations where the drinks are self-serve.
Most “family-type” restaurants in Ontario do give free refills for soft drinks and coffee. For instance, Swiss Chalet:
The OP may have been talking about the Pickle Barrel, which IIRC does not give free refills.
Many “family” restaurants (Jonathan’s, Denny’s, etc.) in Japan have a “drink set” option that includes free drinks (so that you can not only have refills, but even switch beverages with every cup/glass).
Not the norm in the Arabian Gulf either.
The kind of Americans who travel the world but eat at McDonalds are a special group. I can totally see Americans stepping into McDonalds and having a cognitive dissonance thing about not getting free refills. They certainly have a cognitive dissonance thing about seeing beer on the menu. Plus, there is the whole “the customer is always right” retail philosophy. Seems easier than explaining “yes, this is McDonalds, but it’s not your McDonalds.”
Anyway, it wouldn’t seem odd to me that McDonalds would decide to offer a free refill overseas because of their visiting American customers. If the natives of whatever country have no culture of free refills, it’s probably not designed for them.
Yup, that was the place I learned about it the hard way.
See, you’re talking about me now. I always sample the local fare, of course, but something fascinates me about McDonald’s being all over the world and I usually pop in just to experience it. I’ve eaten at the arches in France, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, and Japan. I’ve never gotten pissed about anything in those countries, much less not getting a refill. The mere thought is absurd to me.
I think it’s very odd, and a bit egotistical. You think McDonald’s managers all over the world are thinking about Americans when contemplating their drink policies? IF this policy even exists, it’s probably an artifact of McDonald’s being a, you know-- American company, and not locals having American tourists on the mind when making decisions.
To those of you in other countries that give no free refills, what’s the average cost of a fountain soda? We can pay upwards of $2.50 US for a glass of soda (pop/coke/whatever) in a mid-priced family restaurant. The cost of fountain soda is pennies so the markup here is ridiculus. I would be happy to pay for refills if the price was commensurate with the cost to the restaurant.
$2.50 seems high for the family restaurants I go to, which give free refills. I’ve just come back from Europe, and soda was more expensive than the local alcoholic beverage, beer in Germany, wine in Spain. I didn’t order any sodas, but I suspect they were smaller in volume than beer, certainly. I had a very nice glass of wine in a neighborhood place in Barcelona for 1 euro. Coffee might be better, but it comes in very small cups, no refills, except in a breakfast buffet in Barcelona (a relatively expensive hotel one.) No refills even during a lunch buffet in Cairo.
One more datapoint. On cruise ships, soda costs, while coffee and iced tea (and tap water) is free with refills.
I’ve never in my life waltzed up to a soda fountain and poured myself a free refill as the default option. I do believe I’ve seen a McDonalds near me with a sign stating that refills were free, but otherwise I’d feel like I was stealing from them.
To be honest I’d never realized that free refills of anything, except coffee at breakfast, was even the policy anywhere. Then again I rarely eat at fast food joints and mostly only do now when bugged by the kids if we’re out and in a hurry. You mean I’ve been depriving myself of free refills for my entire life?
deleted. Misunderstood statement.
Well, to begin with, here (France) you don’t drink coffee with the meal . You drink one cup after the meal.
Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone drinking coffee during a meal, except with the dessert. It’s that uncommon.
Same here.
On the coffee issue - most Americans only drink coffee with breakfast, or at their desk at work (possibly throughout the day). It is rarely drunk with lunch or dinner, except maybe a fancy dinner, where it generally would be drunk after the meal, usually with dessert, but depending on the restaurant maybe separate from the dessert (I can’t remember the order). They will generally refill free even then, but I don’t think most people would refill as much as they do at breakfast. At breakfast it’s as much about consuming caffeine as drinking an enjoyable beverage.
I think the free refills on soda only started happening after enough people realized it’s really cheap for the restaurants. People having been making coffee and tea forever and have always known how inexpensive it is, but soda wasn’t a normal everyday drink even 25 years ago.
And I don’t find it surprising at all to think McDonald’s might have a free-refill policy just to appease traveling Americans. It’s long been a sort of icon both in America and of America, and although they certainly didn’t build all those locations around the world just for Americans, I do think a large number of the customers are tourist Americans. (Has anyone confirmed the deal about the refills being free if you ask? Or are we debating a non-issue here?)
And I remember visiting Canada (southern Ontario, not far at all from the US) about 30-35 years ago and the waitress at a small restaurant had not heard of iced tea. When my dad explained it she was horrified and said they really couldn’t do that. My dad then asked for a cup of hot tea and a glass with just ice cubes but she was so freaked out he changed his mind and just got a Coke. I guess they caught on since then, eh? (My dad also used to order Dr Pepper everywhere we traveled back in the days when it was only available in Texas, with similar results. Ah, hard to imagine those days anymore…)
Yep. I tend to avoid fast food restaurants nowadays, preferring to go to real restaurants which serve real food. Every place I go to has free refills on regular coffee, tea*, and fountain sodas and soft drinks such as lemonade. If I want an alcoholic beverage, a fancy coffee (one that isn’t poured from a carafe), or another teabag for another cup of hot tea, or another canned/bottled soda, then I have to pay for each drink separately. Usually the menu will say something like “Free refills on coffee, tea, and soft drinks”. I do get some odd looks when I’ve had my fill of tea and ask for just water for the rest of the meal. Ice tea is the default drink here in Texas, and I prefer to limit my intake of caffeine, sugar, and artificial sweeteners.
I drink copious amounts of water with meals - I only rehydrate regularly when I’m at home, as I hate the taste of my school’s water fountain and I’ve conditioned myself from years of public school to not drink water. (Plus we’re not allowed to have drinks of any kind in the computer lab anyway.)
It has the nice bonus of making me feel full. Though I am by no means overweight it makes me feel that much better about the tiny paunch I have from being a couch potato. 
Also, I’ve worked in food services. The customers were assfucks who thought they were entitled to everything and threw hissyfits whenever things didn’t go exactly their way. Even my boss had to tell people off when he got fed up with them, and would actually tell people to order more food or tip higher because they were being cheap bastards.
At some Indian fast food places you are given the option of buying a single cup or a refillable cup at a slightly higher price.
I’ve never seen free refills in China and it’s a little unusual to drink soda with your meal. Around here, only fast food places have fountains. A can of coke costs maybe 30 cents. Most sit-down meals come with unlimited tea, but the tea that comes with meals in often just hot water, or extremely weak tea. Nobody drinks tap water straight- usually if you are offered water it will be hot boiled water. Noodles and dumplings will often come with a weak soup (just salt and a few strands of seaweed) that takes the place of water. Tea houses, on the other hand, will give you a thermos of hot water so you can refill your tea while you linger for hours.
In Cameroon, there were very few restaurants that we would recognize as such, and I don’t think I ever saw a soda fountain. Pretty much all soda came in bottles for about $1.00 for a large bottle, which classified it firmly as a luxury item (many people would be lucky to make $1.00 in a day.) People drank the tap water even though it was virtually sure to make you sick.
My husband and I were dining in a restaurant in the Akron area (name upon request) – around here free refills are absolutely expected. The glasses were tiny. The waitress kept asking if we wanted refills, and we kept saying yes. At the end of the meal the bill was incredible – she’d charged us each time. When we protested, she said that soft drinks came from the bar, which ran a separate tab, and so she had no control over that. It was absolutely a racket and we never went back.
Around here, it’s usual to keep some jugs of water and a whole bunch of glasses available to all comers (can’t speak to other parts of Australia. I’d be surprised if it were the custom in Adelaide). Given that, I can’t see much of a market for free refills of fizzy drinks ever springing up (and it’s much healthier this way too).
This matches my recollection as well. I was a kid in the seventies, and it was standard procedure for sit-down restaurants to automatically provide each diner with a glass of water. You’d probably order an additional beverage, but when you finished it, if you were still thirsty, you drank water. Although, my memory may be clouded by the times we ordered milk or juice or a milkshake (on which there was never free refills), or my parents may have encouraged us to believe that the restaurant wouldn’t give us more soda to discourage overconsumption.
Still, my impression is that over the last few decades in America, free refills on soda has gradually changed from being the exception most places to being the norm most places—and cup sizes have gotten larger, too.
American restaurants generally serve coffee before the dessert, which is the opposite from what I am used to in the UK.