This annoys the crap out of me. They take your drink, leaving you with nothing else, usually right when your food arrives. So you can either sit there and stare at your food not eating it until your drink arrives or you can eat and choke on your food. Some places at least give you a glass of water as a backup. How hard is it to just bring another glass? You don’t even have to put ice in it; I’ll pour it in the first glass as I drink from it. That way it won’t get as watery. But hell, give me something! Does anyone else get similarly annoyed about this?
For that matter I can NEVER understand how people can eat food without having a drink to go with it. Whenever I go out to eat with my dad, for instance, if his beer or water is empty and he’s waiting for a refill, he will go right on eating fries, bread, spicy stuff, etc, sometimes for up to five minutes until the drink is refilled - with NO liquid at all.
If I try to eat even more than two bites of any substantial kind of food without water to drink along with it, I get a choking, dry-heaving type of feeling immediately. I MUST have a drink along with my food.
The MOST important thing is that they ASK FIRST!!1!! Otherwise it’s just 100%!! RUDE and LAZY!!!11!!
I drink while eating but I’ve heard that it’s better for your digestion if you don’t. May be an old wives’ tale for all I know, though.
I usually drink water and/or iced tea, so mostly I get my refills from the pitcher. If I’m drinking soda or juice though, I always ask for a glass of water if they don’t automatically give it to me, for precisely this reason. I don’t like it when I don’t have a glass of liquid in front of me.
Most of the restaurants I eat at do one of two things, either they bring me another drink before I finish the first one then after I finish the first one take the empty glass away, or they top off my drink with a pitcher (sometimes asking first, but often not). Occasionally I will have a server ask me if I want another drink when they see that I’m almost finished, but if I say yes they’ve never taken my unfinished drink to refill the glass.
Last year this area was suffering a drought, and most restaurants stopped giving you a glass of water with your meal unless you asked for one. I notice that now that the drought is over we’re getting water automatically again.
It’s an opportunity to give a person someone else’s glass by mistake.
This is why I always order a water with along side any drink… 
I just have them pour the extra drink right into my trough.
When I worked as a server I would usually bring another glass, but sometimes we just ran out of clean glasses. And it was an “upscale” restaurant. The biggest problem was the fact that the industrial-strength dishwashing machine broke down all the time. Especially when it’s a packed house eating a dinner, this poses a problem when it comes to having a steady supply of clean glasses (as well as all types of silverware for that matter).
I can understand wanting to have a drink on hand if you’re eating something spicy, but this is the first time I’ve heard of someone not being able to go without a drink for even a minute or two. I wonder if your salivary glands aren’t working correctly.
I don’t really have this problem. I may have exaggerated a bit in my first post. Most foods I can eat for a couple of minutes with no major problems, but it feels better to have some liquid to mix it with. Drier foods, especially cheeseburgers, tend to give me the hiccups.
That’s actually not normal. I would get that checked out.
Yes- you may have hiatus hernia problems.
I’m also a tea drinker. I like mine with sweet-n-low.
What sticks in my craw is when I take about three or four drinks out of the glass; the waitress will come over and top my glass off. Thus, effectively screwing up my tea sugar balance!!
I mean, I appreciate the vigilance, but damn!
When I was serving tables it was policy to take the customer’s glass from the table and refill it. It was an effort by management to control food costs.
Servers had access to pop, coffee, etc… but not to new, clean glasses themselves. That way, the bartender could control the distribution of new drinks. Otherwise, servers would simply grab clean glasses, fill them up and hand out free drinks to their friends or to customers in order to cultivate better tips.
Of course, if the customer specifically asked for a new glass they would get one, but the server would have to give the old glass to the bartender and explain the situation.
It sounds so silly (and it is) but restaurants have such a narrow profit margin that managers are often chasing every fraction of every cent. As employees we weren’t allowed to use straws or napkins when we ate on our breaks.
No napkins? So how did they expect you to wipe off your hands and mouth?
Seriously? Needing a sip of liquid for almost every bite? Seems a little weird to me.
I grew up never drinking during meals. I’d always drink my milk or juice or whatever after I was done eating, because my grandmother used to say I was ruining my appetite by drinking it before or during the meal.
Now I sip at my drink occasionally while I’m eating but I’ll often forget about the drink and just let it sit there while I eat. Unless I’m eating something spicy and I need to cool my mouth off, I generally barely touch the drink while eating - just before and after the meal.
On the customer’s glass before returning it to the customer’s table?