It always amazes me that in the USA you can go and get a free refill at McDonald's. Like you can get unlimited soda just by buying a cup?
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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You can buy a fountain drink and can do your own free refills at most fast food places like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, etc.
Some persons will be unethical and request a free water cup, and later on fill it with soda when no one is looking. Depending on your perspective, this is immoral, but of course it doesn’t hurt the store’s profitability since not everyone does that. I personally don’t do that.
Some fast food chains are removing access to the fountain drinks to discourage that behavior and shift the blame to customers - “bad customers steal drinks, so you’ll all be punished and have to wait in line to get a refill.”
The real objective is that companies can take more profits by “having” free refills, but making it “more inconvenient” to get it. On a busy day with your family at a fast food restaurant when the lines are long, how many will take extra time to wait in line for a refill? More profits in the hands of the owners.
My brother-in-law is the get a water cup kind of guy, also only buys with a coupon and will clogg the line by making several separate orders to get the most "value".
Chick-fil-A is a place that makes it inconvenient to get a refill by waiting in line. They claim it's for customer service and food safety but it's so you ask.
Part of the rationale was always that it costs the company more in cashier pay to get a soda, than it dies for the customer to get a soda. I suppose that calculation changes if you have the customer pay for the refill ps by overcharging initially, but then discourage them from getting it
Yes. Soda costs McDonald's less than half a penny per ounce and they charge upwards of $3.50 for a large cup. It's almost all profit. The ice probably costs more than the soda.
I mean it costs the company ~10¢ per cup and they charge ~$2-$3 for the cup so I'd damn well better be able to refill it for free
When I worked fast food, the cup was about 10x more expensive than the contents of said cup. Since nobody will fill their cup 10x, the cost of the drink is negligent.
s/ligent/ligible/?
If the cup cost them 10c then likely the soda is at like 1c to fill it.
Fill it ten times for 20c total and they still making bank.
That's what I'm saying, it's incredible! Here where I live fast food places don't offer free refills, you have to buy another soda if you want more
Where i live I even have to pay for extra sauce 🤣
Yeah, you're not really paying for the soda. You're paying for the labor that goes into providing the service, maintaining the equipment, etc. Oh, and the paper cup which probably cost more than the liquid you put in it. The high margin on things like soda also subsidizes the cost on lower margin food items.
The true value of soda is also somewhat obfuscated by the fact that most people's point of comparison is packaged soda. A bottle you buy at the store also didn't necessarily cost a lot to make, but actually distributing pre-made soda to retailers is a lot more expensive than shipping syrup which can be mixed with water on-site. That added cost is built into the price of packaged soda.
I'm not up to date, why is McDonald's removing drink dispensers?
Greed. It’s harder for McDonalds to nickle and dime you if they are giving soda out for free.
Which is bonkers because it's stupidly cheap on a per unit basis and they charge a ridiculous amount for it.
That's most things made under capitalism though...
"I've got a jdea! We'll save money if we put more work on the workers!"
Brilliant! That's why we pay you the CEO salary. Between that one, and "let's make it smaller and charge the same price" you're a genius!"
Yea but now people are less likely to get that refill which saves McDonald’s $0.03 in syrup. Think of the shareholders here bub, they need their profits!
When you wrote fountain drinks dispenser, a different picture formed in my head. (And I looked confused for a short while. I guess. )
It's not this:
But this:
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
Dude you're old
I once threw four touchdowns in a single game
I recently went to a Burger King in a nice neighborhood the other day. I hadn't been to a Burger King in a long time but I was there before the bank opened. I walked in and it looked just like this, all the seats were rigid, cheap, small and uncomfortable (I am not a large person). There were no fountains for drinks. There were no dispensers of any kind. The seating area was basically just a small hallway to a restroom. It wasn't a place you were supposed to eat. It was more like a display from a shopping mall department store window and just as uninviting.
Inside you had to order from the digital kiosk. I assume that burger king transitioned to making the drivers window the priority during the pandemic. All the space in that building was probably allotted to increasing the size of the kitchen.
They still had the original burger king playpen and maze but it was permanently locked with an out of order sign.
For some reason I did not properly parse the "without" part of the headline, and came in here to ask why McDonald's patrons are just drinking ketchup now.
Free refills on ketchup? I'm drinking ketchup.
It's been years since I last saw them in McDonald's here in Germany, maybe even a decade. I'm surprised they survived that long wherever OP is located.
Netherlands here. Same. Can't say I remember ever seeing a customer facing drinks fountain at any fast food chain place anywhere in the country. Hell, even anywhere in the EU. I was about to say anywhere in Schengen, but although I have been to Switzerland once, I haven't been to a Swiss Macca's.
Aussie checking in, similar situation. I remember there used to be one at the hungry jacks facing the customers, and it always had puddles of liquid on the ground. Perhaps that's why it was discontinued.
They're not on the American Style Burger places any more, but Ikea in Sydney has customer-controlled fizzy drink fountains.
You know how we can instantly tell 90s restaurants because of their tacky decor? This interior is already like that. The fake bleached wood all over everything that looks cheap and horrible will be iconic for now.
Reminds me of the lever in a Skinner-box.
Speaking of fountain drinks, if I get a water cup, is it fine to use the soda fountain for seltzer? I've been seeing more soda fountains with both those water tabs (on the lemonade) and a seltzer tab (on the sprite).
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