I noticed this not long ago when a Jewish friend and I fasted for Yom Kippur by getting burgers and fries at Five Guys (a favorite hangout of Barask Obama, who isn’t Jewish . . ). I spotted a free-refill soft drink machine to the side, and you’re welcome to refill your cup as often as you wish.
The issue is this: they charge you more for a “large” soft drink than for a “small” one, even though you can drink as much as you want. The difference in price just reflects the size of the empty cup they give you when you order. What is going on here? Why would anybody in their right mind pay more for a larger empty cup? (n.b. again: you’re welcome to drink as much as you want).
Prowling the Strip this afternoon looking for lunch, I finally wound up at Dave’s Hot chicken (it’s nearly impossible to get healthy food on the Strip). And, mirabile dictu, there was the same issue: a all-you-can drink soft drink machine available in the small shack coupled with large and small empty cups having different prices.
What is the purpose of this? To make money by bilking the people who don’t see the drink machine? Or are there some lazy people who can’t be bothered to go back to the machine for a refill?
More on the Strip tomorrow. I have concluded that this is the entrance to Hell.
It makes sense if you want to have a large one for the road.
It’s not a scam–but it does require one to be alert to the situation to avoid paying too much. I think the main reason one would pay for a large cup is if one were taking the food to go, and therefore can’t just grab a refill with a few steps back to the machine.
Convenience isn’t laziness. If the large costs .70 cents more, the calculation is, is .70 cents worth not having to be bothered refilling the cup? In my mind, it is. I ain’t gonna miss .70 cents. I am gonna be annoyed if I have to stop what I’m doing (usually reading) to have to refill a kiddie meal cup. To each their own.
I’ve seen this crazy thing before. It doesn’t make any sense, except for those who want to limit the number of trips to the soda fountain. For example, I might buy a large if I’m planning to leave the store and won’t be able to get a refill. Oops. Yes, as Robert Woolley and Roger B Olson say above. And I thought I was being clever.
Obama not Jewish? Who’duh thunk it?!
You’re about to enter Hell. Wait until you see the rows and rows of people plying the one-armed bandits, some of them so frail and decrepit that they seem like they’ve been at it non-stop for days at a time. Some of them have.
Panera does the same thing. So does my local Wendy’s. A lot of people take food to go so they buy a large.
Besides the convenience issue and the to-go benefit of the larger cup, I wonder if there’s some psychological thing going on in which customers know they’re benefitting from the free refills so pay for the larger cup out of guilt.
I am not attracted in any way to gambling and get zero endorphin rush from it when I do get dragged to a casino with friends, so its sad to see the people in there who are addicted to it. As Norman mentioned, it is Hell.
The thing is, when I was there I saw several people getting large cups, eating in the restaurant, and leaving empty-handed. I noticed this because this is when I realized the foolishness of paying more for these large cylinders of cardboard.
Wait, none of you get the free water cup and then fill it with unlimited sodas?!
THAT would be unethical!
Lol.
I’ve done that a couple of times after long searches for the always hidden water made me conclude that they actually owe me for my time.
I’m reminded that it is not always so that purchasing larger quantities of a commodity at a grocery store results in a lower cost/unit for the consumer. Sometimes purchasing the smaller quantity results in a lower cost/unit. Oh, those crafty capitalists. Caveat Emptor. One has to pay attention in this age of distraction and short attention spans.
. . . and the “price per ounce” sticker on the shelf.
This is such a cool post.
I have been to Vegas and nothing would tempt me back. Not even the one armed bandits in the gents toilets when you hurry from the plane.
My son went to Las Vegas several years ago for a bachelor party for one of his friends. He said it left a bad taste is his mouth. I consoled him, saying that just proved he had had the authentic Vegas experience.
Maybe your son was tasting the wrong tastes, Leslie? 🙂
Be happy though that he didn’t come home married or divorced!
My wife went there lately to see The Eagles at the oculus/eye thingie they have there. Were I particular Eagles fan I’d have gone and I did want to see the stadium b/c it is very impressive: an American original we should be proud of.
I didn’t go. Just stayed behind here at home in NYC with elderly puppers.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
We got by and she had fun. I guess the ancient Eagles throw their walkers out into the audience at the end of their set but I didn’t ask.
D.
😁
Don’t you get more fries when you order a large?
People who are not eating on site may prefer to buy the larger drink to take with them. In a physically small outlet, the percentage of customers who eat their purchase on site may be very small and, given the enormous profit made on soft drinks, the proprietor can well afford to allow repeated trips to the dispenser. This makes customers happy and alleviates the proprietor of the problem of keeping track of who should or should not be filling their cups.
See the comments in the thread above. Yes, this may be possible, but I’ve SEEN people order a large cup, eat on the site, and then leave without taking soda with them. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
I’ll spare you the expected value computation, but as someone who always orders the large, I’m thinking, there is a chance I will finish it, so it’s worth the whopping 20¢ premium.
One way of looking at this is the more soda you drink (even diet soda), the shorter you live, so maximizing the amount of soda you get per penny is not a rational strategy. Not drinking it at all is the best choice. At least in Canada, McDonalds coffee is pretty good, drinkable black. Clip your refillable water bottle to your belt with a carabiner and that covers all the choices you need.
Firstly, Five Guys makes lovely, fresh, delicious burgers, but they aren’t cheap. Whenever I visit my youngest daughter at university, she insists I take her to the local Five Guys, and despite the price, I don’t complain because the food is so good.
The last time I visited, a few weeks ago, I ended up taking her and two of her friends for lunch there, and they taught me a money-saving trick they use. We ordered two drinks for the four of us; my daughter and I shared a drink, as did her friends. There’s no rule that a drink must be consumed by a single person. So, you buy one drink, fill it up, leave the lid off and put two straws in. Fill it up as often as you like, and you have a never-ending drink for two!
I suppose that the larger cup is for folks who want to take their larger drink to go. As for Vegas itself, I agree with Coach Beard on Ted Lasso. “One night is good, two nights is perfect, three is too many”.
https://youtu.be/EcApk2Yu4xU?si=86I5215lhYSPFbgh
A [insert stereotypical stupid nationality here] man buys an old oil lamp in a sale. As he is cleaning it, a genie pops out. The genie says “forsooth! You have activated the wish genie. I am empowered to give you three wishes. What is your first wish?”
The man thinks a bit and then says can I have an infinite bottle of beer* please. The genie says “your wish is my command!” A bottle of beer instantly appears in the man’s hand. He pour a glass and drinks it. It’s the best beer he’s ever had. Then he looks at the bottle and sees it is still full. Amazing.
The genie says “and what about your other two wishes?” The man says “I’ll have two more of them please.”
*brand probably depends on what nationality you chose for the man.
There is a similar joke involving a man in a boat and a genie that can grant only one wish. For his wish, the man commands the genie to turn the entire ocean into beer. Poof, it is done. “God dammit!!”, cries the man who realizes what he has done. “Now I have to pee in the boat!!”
This has been common practice for over a decade. For any chain that has delivery, drive-in, pick-up service, those kinds of orders can be a very large part of the business. But let’s face it, they are just selling water and some cardboard with a little bit of fizz and flavor at a huge markup so they could not care less if dine-in patrons make two or more trips to the drink dispenser since it costs them very little and they’ve already got your money.
I can see how the restaurant would be indifferent to whether the dine-in customers refilled a small cup numerous times or a large cup not at all. The cost of soda is so little that once they charge anything they’re making money. And the take-out customers must pay for the large cup anyway if they want a large serving. Free refills in house is, at worst, just a loss leader subsidized by the thirsty take-out customers and by the convenience-seeking dine-ins who pay for large cups….and don’t want to stand in line behind all the schnorrers refilling their thimbles to save 20 cents.
I don’t see how any of this could be described as a scam. The dine-in customers can see the prices of the two cups and if they choose to pay for a large one, no one is being cheated. Maybe the first time you visit a restaurant that does this you might be taken aback to be given a large empty cup and directed to the self-serve fountain but you would only do this once if you were the type that sees “scams” everywhere.
(I’m glad that America is wealthy enough, despite scandalous income inequality and no universal free health care, that its residents can afford to leave free soda on the table.)
Take-out customers subsidize dine-in customers in other ways. The restaurant has to collect the dine-ins’ trash and put into a dumpster, which it pays to have collected and sent to landfill. If the restaurant goes through the motions of separating the plastic for “recycling” (a brief expensive detour that leads back to landfill), it has to pay for that, too. The take-out diners just toss their trash out the windows of their cars yet they paid for the cost of trash disposal in the same menu price. Even if they conscientiously dispose of their trash at home, their municipality pays to collect it.
I’m sure the restaurants have figured all this out to the penny. Their success at doing it is reflected in their share price.
They’re opening a Five Guys downstairs from me on 8th Ave any day soon the sign says. I’d prefer a McDonalds but I’ll give it a go.
Fast food always increases the chaos, particularly late night chaos of a neighborhood in Manhattan but I can live with that, particularly if their burgers are good.
We’ll see.
(I never drink “post-mix” sodas from machines, I think they’re terrible. Buy a can or a bottle I say)
D.A.
NYC
This happened to me in a coffeeshop. When I asked why anyone would buy a large coffee when refills were free, the barista seemed confused.
On a tangent, I get a bit annoyed in coffeeshops where they don’t have drip decaf coffee but can make you a decaf Americano costing more. Recently I had breakfast with a friends. I ordered a decaf American (costing more) while my friend ordered regular coffee which had free refills. My life isn’t completely caffeine-free so I later asked the waiter for a refill of regular coffee but I asked for literally half a cup to limit my caffeine intake. When the bill came, I had been charged for two cups of coffee!