The owner of a convenience store told me once that the largest cost component is the CUP - the ice and soda don’t cost him nearly as much. He says most people couldn’t drink a buck and half worth of the beverage unless they camped out in his store all day.
I don’t care if it’s water with ice. It’s the ice that I can chew, suck on, that makes the commute easier. I’d buy a cup of ice and forget the soda pop (as a matter of fact, I’ve done that - lots of times). I think that Coke and Pepsi are rather strong and I like the additional water that ice offers.
The thing you have to understand is that soda is dirt cheap. Some CO2, some water, some sugar, a few milligrams of some flavoring agent, sell it all for $1.59 and it only costs $0.05 to make. That’s why “super” is twice as large as “large”, but only costs $0.25 more.
Yes, soda is the biggest scam there is, but it’s not because they give you too much ice! As has been pointed out, both the ice and the cup cost as much as the soda does. Soda is pure profit.
I think the european predjudice against ice and water is that for centuries the water hasn’t been fit to drink. Water could make you sick since it was full of pathogens. Beer and wine were the only safe drinks since the alcohol killed the germs. Over here in America we simply expect the water to be pure.
There you have it. It’s not the Americans, it’s the Jews.
;j
Also, though, adding ice seems to keep fountian pop from going flat. We serve coke/sprite/etc from the gun at work, and although I have no idea what the reasoning is behind this, a glass of iceless pop will go flat much quicker. The bartenders HATE serving pop without ice, cuz it always comes back to them with a complaint about how flat it is (and fountain pop, although cheap, isn’t exactly the most highly carbonated stuff you could get).
Interesting! You sure it wasn’t b/c their ice machine was broken or something?? No ice at ALL?
I couldn’t get any, and they didn’t offer any excuses. They just said they didn’t have any, despite the fact that many of the people in my group were visibly disappointed. We even offered to buy some, IIRC. No dice.
Perhaps it was just a Franconian thing. This was the KFC in Nuremberg.
Pop cost: 5 gallons of premix costs about $35. It mixes 6 to 1, therefore $35 makes about 35 gallons of pop. If a glass is filled 50% with beverage, a quart size cup will have about 12.5 cents worth of pop in it.
Ice cost: If you buy it, it’s still a lot cheaper than pop. If you invest in a machine and you use it for a while, it’s damn near free.
Cup cost: A large paper cup can cost nearly a quarter, a travel type of cup can cost 50 cents. Most paper cups with lids and straw cost about 15 cents.
Hope this helped the tangent discussion
Dear Doctor
Where are you?
Your profile says you live in “sheep”. Very cute, but are you in the States, and experiencing this every day, or in Singapore, and speculating?
If you pop back in, could you give your fellow Dopers a lttle background, and let us know if your question has been answered well? We kind of like the human touch.
And…
WELCOME TO THE STRAIGHT DOPE BOARD!! Have fun,
Redboss
Fill the ice to the fucking top. It keeps the soda cold. Warm or luke cool soda tastes like syrup. After a few minutes, non-carbonated syrup. I remember going to Britian a few years ago and getting a soda with an ice cube or two. The soda tasted pleasantly different (Dr. Pepper really had a bite), due to differences in carbonation and sweetness or sweetner used by local bottling plants. But it still got sticky sweet at the end. Damn! Even the vending machines gave non-cooled cans of soda in Europe. Even if the ice melts and dilutes the soft drink it is STILL COLD.
The heat of more southern climates has an effect. Even imported British beers are served cold here in Texas. The really thick ones I save for winter consumption.
My sig is my answer.
The McDonalds in Rome had Ice…3 cubes. exactly.
And everyone was owing and ahing over it.
I agree with:
In Texas it’s just plain hot. Ice melts too fast.
I do prefer my drink diluted.
I also prefer to only get up once to get a drink, hence the big monster sized drink.
Our refills are free, mosly.
Don’t Europeans feel ripped off at paying about 2.00 bucks for a can of coke?
But, not to hijack this:
How cool is this?
want ketchup in Rome?
good. pay 25 cents per package!
being a ketchup hog cost me dearly.
also, a big mac meal deal was around 9 bucks 5 years ago at said Mc Donalds.
now THAT is the king of all ripoffs.
That cracked me up for bit! 
Around the early 1980s or early 1970s, the First Of The Great Concept Of CONVENIENCE Stores, – the 7-11s – crashed onto the American scene and promptly made billions by providing food and drink 24/7 for anyone at In-convenient prices. Plus, after a bit, they provided convenient places for drunks to hide from the cops and swill great cups of coffee and great volumes of soft drinks to try to sober up enough to get home.
Somewhere in this time, they developed the concept of the HUGE drink for a small fee. It came in a huge waxed paper cup, was mainly ice, had a lid, a long straw and a little actual soda, but people, especially construction workers loved it. Later on, they increased it to something like a bucket and on hot summer days, those who work outside loved it because the contents stayed cold, and as the ice melted, gave then much needed cold, flavored water. A lot of people don’t like to drink straight soda when putting a roof on a place in 100 degree temperatures, or building a house, working in a grove or tarring a road because the concentrated ‘sweetness’ can actually sour your stomach. So the buckets of soda gradually dilute as the ice melts and is easier on the stomach.
Interestingly enough, the 7-11s which started it all and were once almost everywhere all over the nation, have been reduced through competition and lawsuit attrition to a minor business now.
The 7-11s also introduced that most best of all drinks for kids and adult, the Slushy, which alone should enter it in the Convenience Store Hall of Fame. Along with the concept of hot-dogs cooked so long that they looked and tasted like rawhide dog chews. (Drunks sure could scarf them down after the bars closed though.)
Now, crushed ice in drinks. My memories go back to the 50s, to when no hamburger stand in town, and there were like 2, had air conditioning nor any place to eat inside, just covered tables and long, roofed over parking spots. (No MacD’s, no Burger King, no Wendy’s, no Checkers and no Arby’s. Pressed, precooked meat had not yet arrived nor had boxes of premade burgers. No KFC.) I remember drinks being filled with cubes or, like A&W root beer, being served icy cold, with no ice, in chilled mugs. (I’ve got an A&W root beer mug somewhere around here. Man, is it thick and heavy!) I think the crushed ice started coming in around the beginning of the 70s, because through the 60s, our REXALL Drug store had a soda fountain and served drinks mainly iceless or with wedge shaped or tiny cubes of ice.
Woolworth’s had it’s lunch bar and served drinks with cubed ice. My first real job after high school in the early 70s had a cafeteria and a cubed ice dispenser for all drinks. You could buy these devices to make crushed ice at home, though they had been around since the 50s. Somewhere in the 60s, these bagged ice machines showed up at the 7-11s, offering block or cubed. Somewhere in the 70s, they started offering crushed ice.
It took off.
Previous posters are right; the actual cup is what you get charged for because the soda is so cheap, especially from a dispenser. So, when you buy a drink for $1.75 for a counter, just think, you probably are getting 5 cents worth of soda. When I worked in Kmart, someone irritated at the increased price of soft drinks at the cafeteria, discovered the cup deal and spread it around. So, we would go to lunch, get a free cup of ice, then fill a similar sized cup with soda, pay for the soda and get enough for 2 drinks at the price of 1!
The management had to put a stop to that because the cafeteria started taking a major loss in the drink concession.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by LightTracer *
**
7-11’s introduced the SLURPY. I know, a technicality. I remember the Baseball trading cups. No 7-11’s in Houston anymore.
Enough hijacking. The rest of your post explained well the reason for ice in sodas.
I wonder if iced tea has ever made it to Europe. Same principle. Lots of ice. Free refills. Served at ALL the restaraunts in the south and almost all of the rest of the U.S. I’m sure we would prefer blowing and sipping on hot tea rather than quashing our thirst with about 6 good swallows.
Well, also, too, alot of times you’re eating what-a burger and fries with that soda? All that salt and grease are going to make you extremely thirsty.
STill, I hate the combo meals that won’t let you get a medium drink with a supersize fries. I’d be better off just pouring the stuff straight into the toilet bowl.
I don’t know if they have iced tea in Europe, I mean, commonly consumed. (Howdya like that new instant liquid iced tea concentrate and cold water tea bags they have out now? I think true tea drinking Brits of years past must be rising in rage from the grave!)
A friend of mine complained that he could not get iced tea on a flight he took overseas. They did not have it! They would not make it so he asked for a glass of ice, some hot tea and sugar. They had that. When he got it, he steeped his tea, stirred the sugar into the little pot and poured it over the glass of ice.
The serving crew didn’t say a word!
Heck, here in Long Island there are very few areas that are less than two miles from a 7-11 [except out past Brookhaven maybe]. Indeed, in my very own home town of 40K people (typical inner core suburb), there are no less than three (3) 7-11s. Maybe the Southland corporation is dying in the, er…, Southland (sorry), but it’s very strong up here (it certainly seems stronger than Quik-check in New Jersey, which I think is it’s strongest competion there - I don’t really know of any big chain to match it on LI).
Ironically, as I type this, no less than 10 cm from me is a 7-11 thermal X-treme Gulp Travel Mug (52oz ~ 1.5l), holding some Barq’s root-beer & a 1/5mug of ice. This mug works great at keeping things cool for up to 5 hours (ancedotal evidence on my part, but it seems that way), and you save a little on the refill costs.
And it never fails to awe people who see it and ask where’d I get it and how much did it cost!
Unlikely. What is it, $1.25 or so for a three-pound bag of ice? (Been a while since I bought any). And then what? Set it on the counter so that half of it melts? No, you need a freezer, which consumes electricity (and costs something itslf). Ice-maker? Well, gee, that costs money as well, both for the machine and the electricity.
Check your sources and get back to us…
The ice tea I had in europe was not like the Ice tea we have here in the States, meaning the lipton brewed kind.
It was more of the canned awful stuff (Nestle I think?) that tastes nothing like tea.
and it, too, came in a microscopic glass. and since it was “New” and popular, it was $3.00.
I Love Europe VERY much, but man, the drink situation has got to go…
Sweet drinks–ugh! Too bad you can’t get chilled club soda/Perrier as easily in the US as you can in France.