I used to work in a fast food restaurant and I had customers do this to me a couple of times. Mostly I was surprised by the violation of the convention that the customers stay on one side and I stay on the other and never the twain shall meet rather then angry. I was upset to a much greater degree, however, with the customers that walked up and demanded a refill while I was right in the middle of taking another customer's order.Why do we not get free refills in UK???
All Burger King’s in my area have self-serve drink fountains, but almost no McDonalds do. Burger King was the first fast food joint (it’s too hard to call these things a “restaurant”) in my area to offer free refills. McD’s almost universally requires you to get in line and have a worker fill it for you. Wendy’s around here charges for refills (25 cents), but sometimes they skip the charge for their convenience since they have to fill it for you and then they have to ring up the sale. They are least likely to do it for free if the store is near a mall or other high-volume area. The difference in price in fountain drinks is also funny. The Arby’s (free refills) near work charges $1.34 for a medium (20 ounce) and $1.39 for a large (32 ounce). I usually get a large so I can have something to slurp on while at work.
I wonder if it has to do with soda production. Does the UK bottle soda/syrup locally? If it imports it, maybe it would be pricier… I dont see why it wouldnt make it locally though.
Slight hijack:
I always go for the 2L bottle. Does anyone know of a car that has a 2L cupholder the driver can access?
Probably the same reason you have to pay for ketchup in McD’s in Italy
[sub](mind you I don’t know what that reason is, but I suspect it’s the same reason[/sub])
It’s probably got to do with lack of competition… the British consumer has been getting ripped off for years for a variety of things. I paid 3.99 for a whopper combo in the UK. I would pay $3.99 here in Canada. That’s less than half the price. Are they using magical cows there? If I don’t want burger king here, I can find any number of restaurants to choose from, but in the UK the selection is much less.
My brother in law was telling me (and I cannot verify this), but you can get UK made cars on the continent cheaper than in the UK. When the EU allowed people to buy cars there and bring them back to the UK, magically the price of cars in the UK dropped. No doubt in my mind that lack of competition is the cause of high costs in the UK.
First you have to start giving away free coffee refills, something that’s been common in the U.S. for – what? A century?
Not even among all bottles: A common single-serve bottle, sold in vending machines, is the 20oz. But you’re right: The liter has caught on in one place only. Why? Because soda makers sold it as a single liter, no fractions. They decided that one liter is a good size, people like being able to see easy numbers for sizes, and so it caught on.
All containers, at least of food, have double-sizing: English and Metric. Guess which size is more likely to be an integer or a round number, with the sole exception of the liter bottle?
Of all the things to “metricize” in common use in the US, the 2-liter bottle seems among the most odd choices. Why? A liter and quart are only barely different: 1 liter = 1.057 quarts. A 2-quart bottle would differ in volume from a 2-liter by a whopping 3.7 fluid ounces, which I think you’d be hard-pressed to notice.
I guess what I’m saying is that the idea that a round number of liters is more convenient to the user than a round number of quarts doesn’t make much sense. They’re practically identical.
Actually, at the right times, the 2 liter bottles can be cheaper than the 1 liter bottle, if there’s a sale on the 2 liter (which happens not infrequently). They’re usually not that far apart in price. Definitely not double price.
But then, if I need something that I can take with me and drink out of - the 20oz & 1 liter size are reasonable. 2 liters are definitely not (in public - in the comfort and privacy of my living room where no one is watching…). & so I’ll buy the smaller size (even though it is less economical.) The stores make money off of people like me.
I believe the only thing I have ever encountered in any fast food place or restaurant in a number of years, not being refilled for free, is something like juice, milk, or bottled beverages like IBC root beer. Tea, pop, and coffee are all made in-house and are very cheap. To find a restaurant of any kind which doesn’t give refills of them is very strange indeed.
I can remember when McDonald’s didn’t give free refills, but I also remember the one near my home when they did start doing them – there was a big sign hanging over the counter that said “Now get free refills!” or something. I have seen very few self-serve units, though.
The SO claims free refills of pop are less common in Canada, but I seem to find the restaurants that give them whenever I’m there. I haven’t been to the UK… I shall remember not to gulp down my drink after two bites whenever I get around to visiting. 
I think one reason you see free refills in the US but not elsewhere is that Americans are way more into their beverages with meals than other countries (at least ones I’ve been to). I’ve been to Germany, England, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Holland, and without fail, I feel like I have to order two or three cokes at a time with my meal, because I know I’m going to get served an 8oz juice glass of coke*. First thing I did last time I got back to the US was head to 7-11 and get a frickin’ big gulp. I was thirsty.
*This is, of course, not the case in most of these countries when ordering beer, thank goodness.
Whenever I go to a restaurant and order soda, I expect to get free refills unless it comes in a sealed container. And inevitably, the refills are free. Usually I don’t even have to ask, the waiter just takes away my nearly-empty glass and brings it back full.
Maybe they figure that I’m more likely to keep buying food if they keep me there drinking free soda. Or maybe it’s just a Northwest thing… my mom was surprised by that policy when she came up from California.
You know, one of you americans should come over here and set up a chain doing free refills. That would really piss McDonalds and Burger King off.
I actually like to drink water with my meals, but a co-worker likes to have a Coke (or Pepsi if they don’t have Coke). It seems that around here Asian restaurants do not give free soft drink refills. This is true of the Japanese, Thai and Chinese restaurants we frequent. She won’t do Vietnamese, unfortunately; but there are no refills there either. Since I’ve noticed that many of the restaurants serve their soft drinks in cans, I suspect that’s why they do not offer refills – they don’t have big cylinders of syrup and carbonated water. Interestingly, one Mexican restaurant we go to offers only one free refill on their $1.80 glass of Coke. She drinks water there.
This may go in the “lazy Americans” category, but some places I’ve been to have “small” drinks that are about the size of a shot glass, so even with free refills, you’d be getting up and down every three minutes to get more soda. In those cases, I’ll usually go for a larger size.
It’s probably more of a marketing thing. People don’t generally associate “quarts” with soda, or food generally. Selling 2 quarts of Coke makes it sound like your buying motor oil or something. So some marketing whiz noticed that a liter is pretty close to a quart and said, “aha! we’ll call it a 2 Liter bottle instead”.
Of course, the convenience of metric might have something to do with marketing to other countries as well (Canada, for example). But then, the 20oz bottle is marketed up here as “591mL”, which is, IMHO, a stupid number.
Stupid number, maybe, but it is the same as 20oz. Do you want them to make a different size to make the number more rounded?