Ahhhh, well that explains it, then! I was racking my brain trying to think of a restaurant that could actually get away with charging that much. No holds barred for stripclubs though
Thanks for the explanation Green Bean, that makes a lot of sense.
I have seen free refills been given. When I vacationed in the States. NEVER here.
Coffee will often be refilled at breakfast places and such, but the only places I have ever, ever seen free refills here are the occasional place where they have a self-serve soda fountain and decide to let you use it as often as you want.
Free refills on soda is definitely regional. Even the chain restaurants up here don’t do it.
Try Japan, where you’ll pay at least the equivalent of $4, if not more, for one small cup of coffee that never gets a free refill. (I understand they make it one cup at a time, so it makes sense.) Great coffee, but ouch! Of course, you can have all the green tea you want most places for one flat price, so it all works out in the end.
I also hate the places that serve you drinks in containers that are so ridiculously huge you feel like you’re going to blow your kidneys out if you try to finish them. That’s a peculiarly Texas custom, but I’ve seen it spreading across the South now. I do NOT need a full pitcher of iced tea, thank you, one glass should be ample!
What PunditLisa said makes a lot of sense.
Back in the old days before free refills, if I recall correctly, the standard practice in restaurants was to automatically give you a glass of water, in addition to (usually before) the drink you actually ordered. If you’re still thirsty when you finish your soda/milk/juice/wine/whatever, you drink as much water as you want. Probably a lot healthier that way. But nowadays nobody drinks water, maybe because they don’t advertise it enough.
I don’t tend to expect free refills in a strip club (IIRC, Scores is the super-famous strip club that Howard Stern’s always raving about?) where everything is always highly over-priced and nothing’s free, or in a bar where the same general rule applies.
The only bar I know of that will give you free coffee and soda refills is Shootz Cafe in Pittsburgh, and the only reason they do is that you’re paying for your pool table by the hour, so the longer you’re happy the longer you stay and the more you pay.
Used to go to this really good rib joint in Manhattan that always kept the soda, tea and coffee filled up without charging for the refills, and now I can’t even remember the name of it.
{slight hijack} Hey SkyBum I bet you’re one of those guys I see swaying in the breeze out by Convergys! {end hijack}
I was going to say I have ever been charged for a refill here in Utah but SkyBum beat me to it. So I will go on and say I haven’t been charged for a refill in Washington, Oregon, Colorado(tho it has been awhile since I was in Co.) or Nevada.
I would agree with the OP charging for refills is damned cheap. That stuff is almost pure profit for the restaurant. Besides I tend to tip based on how well the waiter/ waitress keeps my drink full.
I think “NO FREE REFILLS (you cheap BAR STEWARDS)” would have been better (to my rather ‘unique’ mind) than the current one. Can’t expect you to think like me tho’!
Dont s’pose anyone watches the British television series “Time Gentlemen Please” on Paramount, do you? The bartending club is “the order of the bar stewards”
Cheers all, Harry
I was traveling through Manitoba and Sascatchewan with my ex when I was complaining about the lack of free refills in the restaurants there. Well in some little restaurant where we decided to eat, I actually found one of the very few places (by accident) that DID offer them, right after his speech about how no one did up there.
The only places I have eaten that didn’t offer free refills were either small, local type places up in Toronto (the larger restaurants did), or places where they didn’t have soda on tap, so when you ordered one they brought you a chilled can and a straw (been to these kind of places in the States and Canada.)
I remember long ago, here, when Joe’s Crab Shack first opened locally – it’s a pretty big chain but I don’t know how many there are outside of Texas – they charged for refills. And they didn’t tell you, and would pre-emptively bring them to the table. It pissed my dad off enough that he’s never eaten there since, and that was years ago. It wasn’t long before they switched their policy over to offer the free refills like everyone else.
You’re going to the wrong restaurants, then. In my four years in NYC, I ate at plenty of restaurants that gave free refills on soda. I had a share of those that didn’t (Zen Palate comes to mind), but overall, I remember getting refills on soda in most places.
Ava
I can only think of three places here that charge for refills. One of them is a fish place that limits you to one free refill. One is one of the most expensive places in town, and one of them is an upscale mexican joint that serves only has canned soft drinks(wich is so out of place…that much money for decor, and canned coke?)
I once got a dennys waitress in trouble because she wanted to limit me to 10 coffee refills. The manager happend to see me and came over to say high just as she was telling me about their new “policy” Most of the wait staff at that dennys knew me.
I could never afford to eat out at places much that limit refills. I usually get 5 or 6 refills of diet coke. Some places just bring me a pticher when they see me come in. I have topped 10 refills many times. If I don’t get at least four the waitresses tip suffers.
Well, great - you named a place that doesn’t, now why don’t you name the places that do. Cuz, by golly, I’m curious.
I eat out a LOT.
University Diner on University and Thirteenth. Heartland Brewery. I’m pretty sure Stingy Lulu’s does, but I haven’t been there in a couple of years, so I could be totally wrong on that. There’s a little French place over by Park and 18th or something that does - I can’t remember the name of it, though. There’s a Mexican-ish place near 35th and 3rd that does - we used to go there for work lunches a lot. Several of the places on 7th Avenue in Park Slope where I’ve eaten - but screw me if I can remember the names right now.
It’s easier for me to remember the places that don’t give free refills - mainly because it seemed to be an oddity - for me at least. Perhaps we’ve just gone to different restaurants. I just remember mostly that those restaurants that had fountain sodas gave free refills - if they served the sodas in cans, like Zen Palate, there weren’t free refills. Angelika Kitchen doesn’t - but I can’t even remember if they put soda on their menu - since it’s macrobiotic, soda might not even be on the menu.
Or maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention to my checks.
Ava
As one who eats in resturants daily, I can say MOST places I eat at give free refills on most drinks.
A bar is different, I have never seen a bar give a free refill.
I guess we aren’t going to the same places!
Well, I have been to Heartland Brewery, but I ordered a brew - and they definitely don’t give free refills on that. Unfortunately.
Well, I’m no longer in NYC, unfortunately, so I can’t go to any of these places - I’m trying to find good locally-owned, non-chain restaurants here, but it’s hard - they’re mostly downtown and I don’t go there often. Heartland’s a good beer place - and we used to go there on Sunday nights for dinner a lot.
Free beer would be good. I miss the days of bottomless pitchers…or was that only at Pizza Hut?
You must try brunch at Stingy Lulu’s, however. It’s excellent - your meal, and two alcoholic drinks for something like $10.95. And you’re full for the rest of the day - that was my roomie’s and my favorite brunch place. And if you’re ever in Brooklyn and want a good, cheap dive bar, try O’Connors at 5th and Dean. $3 beers. Nothing on tap, but you can get completely wasted for under $20 (well, I can, but I’m usually gone after 4 drinks).
God, I miss NYC.
Ava
Last week, my mother and I went out to eat at a place we’d never been to before (we just moved here). I looked at the menu and remarked how reasonable the prices were.
When we ordered, we found out that they charged $1.00 for tap water. Yes, tap water - I checked, and they charge $1.25 for bottled water. Now, I always order iced tea - but my mother orders water (yeah, she’s cheap). She was pissed.
About the overhead/additional labor costs:
Why the hell is iced tea always free to refil? A chinese resteraunt I frequent just changed thier policy so that you have to pay for soda refils (which used to be free), but iced tea is still free. I remember it being like that when I was growing up, too. But doesn’t it take the same amount of work to truck iced tea back and forth?
PS. Hey Green Bean, I spent a lot of late nights as a teenager in a booth of the Galaxy Diner in Rahway. I love it out here, but I miss the diners. Crochety waitresses, bitter coffee, cheese fries with gravy at 3 AM. Mmmm. . .
Uh, sorry. Carry on, don’t mind me.
Hey, Krisfer! I haven’t heard from you in awhile.
Hey, SkyBum! Good to see someone else posting from Utah.
I think Famous Dave’s, in Ogden, charges for refills on soda, but it’s been so long since I could afford to go there that I can’t be 100 percent certain. Plus-one for cheap-ass resteraunt managers, eh?
You must be living in a different NYC than I. I’ve eaten all over this fair town, and I have never been charged for a soda refill anywhere, except for fast food joints.
[hijack] Hugs the stuffins outta ya! Glad to see yer still kickin!{end hijack}
Never been to Famous Dave’s … I have a 7 yr old… we go places with an incredible amount of patience!