In my local grocery store there is an entire aisle devoted to sports drinks, of which 80+ percent is Gator Aid. My son drinks nothing else, and many folks drink it all the time, not just while active.
Yet, I don’t think I’ve seen it on a menu -ever. Is there a reason for this?
Just to get it out of the way, it’s “Gatorade”. Like “lemonade”.
(The question is interesting, but I have no idea about the answer.)
Well, it’s not really supposed to be used as a regular drink. It’s for athletes and those that have exerted enough effort two sweat out their electrolytes and need to replenish (2 hours +). The typical athlete doesn’t work out like that then go to a restaurant right away. They probably go home and shower, replenish with Gatorade, and then go for dinner.
(P.S. It’s loaded with sugar too, so your son is pretty much drinking cola all day. It’s not a healthy drink.)
It just doesn’t go well with most food. Maybe something really salty, but even that is iffy. It also tends to have a rather strong flavor, not to mention dyeing your tongue blue.
Soda takes up more space in the grocery store and I’d wager that most of the people who do buy Gatorade don’t drink it at home with meals.
It has a lot less sugar than soda, actually, by volume. Less than half. Which isn’t to say they’re not empty calories: they are. Just not compared to soda, if you consume the same number of ounces.
However, Gatorade is high in sodium. If you haven’t been exercising and drink several of these, you’ll significantly increase your salt intake for the day (but again, will have consumed fewer calories than if you had been drinking soda.)
I’d suspect there are two reasons:
-
People just don’t want to drink Gatorade in restaurants, for the most part. What people want to drink when they’re doing sports isn’t necessarily what they want to drink when they’re sitting down to dinner. You would always find a few people who’d want it, but…
-
Quaker Oats just doesn’t distribute it that way. Restaurants make a huge, huge margin on beverages. In the case of pop, they pay very little for the syrup out of which the soft drinks are made, and then sell it to you for one or two bucks a glass; in the case of booze, they just mark it up a hundred percent or more. It’s unlikely anyone will pay booze prices for Gatorade, so they’d need to buy the stuff super cheap, like they do pop. So in order to make money off Gatorade, Quaker Oats would have to offer restaurants the same sort of deals that Coca-Cola and Pepsico do. I would imagine they’re just not set up for that sort of arrangement.
It’s not entirely true. I’ve seen them at self-serve style restaurants. Usually it’s only one flavor, and a rather icky one, but it is there.
I guess that still means it isn’t on the menu, though.
In fact, not serving Gatorade seems like a good way to encourage athletes to go home and shower before coming into your restaurant.
PS, some bars (though not most) do have sports drinks to use as mixers–but Powerade (Coke’s Gatorade competitor) seems to be the most common.
There’s a Malaysian drink that’s similar to Gator/Powerade, called 100 Plus, which is available in restaurants throughout Malaysia and Singapore, both in bottles/cans and from postmix machines. In their heat, you need it, believe me.
Powerade does get distributed that way by Coke - it’s at most McDonalds, in the best flavor!
For some reason it makes me laugh to picture someone ordering filet minion or prime rib and a glass of ice cold Gatorade.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gatorade “on tap”, which is probably one reason you don’t see it on menus. Restaurants like to fill from the fountain, they don’t like to open a bunch of bottles. And then if their glasses aren’t the same size as a full bottle, they’ll have to either save the bottle or toss it, which is another thing to deal with. They just don’t want to bother.
Sonic Drive-Ins do have Powerade as a fountain drink option, though.
You think so? To me, Gatorade tastes very bland, unless I’ve been exercising. Someone once told me that if it still tastes good, you still need it.
I’ve seen the occasional 7-11 with Gatorade on tap. One flavor only and pretty rare.
A few delis(or similar level restaurants) with bottled drinks in a reach-in cooler will have it.
I think you’re on to something with this one, but I do want to point out that Quaker Oats is a PepsiCo brand; Pepsi bought Quaker specifically to get the Gatorade brand (and to do so, divested itself AllSport sports drink brand, which was available in fountain formulations for restaurants that carried Pepsi).
I think the lack of Gatorade in fountain form is due to the brand’s legacy as a non-Pepsi/Coke brand, and Pepsi’s current desire to break into larger markets; it was manufactured by Stokely-Van Camp and Quaker for most of its existence, which meant the brand was locked out of restaurants tied down to Pepsi, Coke, or RC beverage licenses, so historically it’s been a brand that couldn’t be sold alongside soda and fruit drinks at most locations. Distribution is still tied in many cases to distribution deals made with SVP and Quaker; a Pepsi vendor might be filling your local grocer’s soda shelves and coolers, but often a separate vendor will then come in to fill the Gatorade shelves, and there may be no way that Pepsi can legally offer fountain syrup without violating some of the old agreements.
It’s also a premium brand that is marketed to fulfill a perceived dietary need, so having it suddenly available on tap next to colas and root beer could water down that perception. Pepsi has also been pushing Gatorade into the higher-end sports nutrition market (protein drinks, vitamin supplement drinks, etc.), so it will probably behoove the company to keep it distinct from its normal beverage offerings in the mind of the consumer.
Gatorade is not offered in restaurants because it tastes like ass.
Given that actual, physical ass is offered at some restaurants (rump roast, for example), tasting like ass can’t be an absolute bar.
When it is served in nice restaurants, we’ve entered Idiocracy.