[Food] So far this year we have served more free tap waters than any other drink…..

[Cheshire Cat]

I was in a craft beer bar last night, and the table of 3 sat next to us had a bottle of sparkling water shared between the 3, plus one other drink, and played cards. This was over the course of at least 2 and three quarter hours.

I woke this morning, and read a social media post from a restaurant I like, which is now closing. They said average daily income had dropped but the thing which caught my eye was “So far this year we have served more free tap waters than any other drink”

No wonder restaurants are struggling if this is happening. I have nothing against people who don’t want to drink alcohol, but give your head a wobble and buy a soft drink or two at least.

Buy more drinks!

Wouldn't happen in Ger...........







Oh............

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I can’t join the lament for a business too stupid to check whether or not it’s making any money on its food.

I also have to say this is an exceedingly arrogant and ignorant statement

 

[Wozza]

Maybe they should charge tightarses for the tap water?

I believe that would be illegal in a licensed premise (in the UK, at least).

But as a general theme, a lot of people want to **** over businesses, don't they? Sad.

 

[Littlemo]

Agree about pubs wholeheartedly. Re restaurants, I’d just ask anyone who is at one to consider buying at least a premium bottle of bottled water, at least one soft each etc. At the end of the day it’s not going to make a huge difference to the bill but for many smaller (and excellent) businesses it DOES make a huge difference.

I think this goes into the area of the customers choice though.

For example last year I was down in Brighton for work and spent £40 in a restaurant for dinner, even though I was eating by myself and was only there about 35-40mins (especially as all they seem to do now is small plates (but that’s another rant )).

If I want to drink water with that then I think I should be able to without being seen like I’m being unreasonable or mooching off the restaurant, I think paying for a recommended number of dishes off the menu should be enough at that point to not be considered as taking the piss, if I don’t want soft drink then I should be free to not have one.

 

[keaton]

I believe that would be illegal in a licensed premise (in the UK, at least).

But as a general theme, a lot of people want to **** over businesses, don't they? Sad.

I'm not sure the bad people who are destroying the restaurant trade are people happy to go out buy their food, pay a service charge and then probably a tip too but don't want to buy a soft drink they don't want

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

@The Fits has given a good account of the licensing trade, and restaurant owners willing to give their side ?

 

[Gazwag]

Where ever i have eaten outside of the uk they automatically put free water on the table when you arrive. I'm sure restaurants would prefer people to come just to eat the food and water rather than not come at all because they cannot afford food and alcohol or soft drinks

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

If you can afford 20-30 for the food you can afford an extra 2-3 euros for a soft drink….the drinks mark up is often the difference between profit and loss.

As other have said, the issue is not necessarily the cost but the lac of choice. I have seen many restaurants with an expansive wine list but then just offering Coca-Cola products as their soft drink options or worse, cheap readymix drinks. As a diabetic, I try to avoid full sugar drinks and unfortunately Coca-Cola use aspartame in most of their diet/zero options which disagrees with me.

Some pubs are just as bad - not realising that the world has moved on. While people joke about the Craft Beer thing, I find that most places that sell craft beers also have a decent range of sodas which are not full of sugar and aspartame.

If restaurants bothered to put as a little effort in to buying soft drinks then, with the mark up, their profit margins will increase, all for the sake of a few extra cans/bottles in the fridge.

 

[alanfp]

I believe that would be illegal in a licensed premise (in the UK, at least).

But as a general theme, a lot of people want to **** over businesses, don't they? Sad.

1. I think that law about having to provide free water if licensed changed a few years ago (citation needed - I'll look it up).

2. That is not my experience at all. I bet it's not the case on NSC. The vast majority of customers understand that everyone's got to make a living and are happy to pay what they perceive to be a fair price for what they get. When you wrote - "general" and "a lot of" I think you meant to write "occasional" and "a few"

 

[OzMike]

At the end of the day if a bottle of coke is 1.50 in a supermarket a restaurant or pub are more than entitled to charge a fiver. If you don’t like that stay at home.

And that is what folk are doing.

 

[Wozza]

1. I think that law about having to provide free water if licensed changed a few years ago (citation needed - I'll look it up).

2. That is not my experience at all. I bet it's not the case on NSC. The vast majority of customers understand that everyone's got to make a living and are happy to pay what they perceive to be a fair price for what they get. When you wrote - "general" and "a lot of" I think you meant to write "occasional" and "a few"

a) https://www.freeths.co.uk/insights-...p-water-obligations-for-pubs-and-restaurants/

ii) It's fairly common to see folk cut 'n pasting articles from paid websites, boast about buying fake shirts or using firesticks, passing on season tickets and generally 'sticking it to the man'.

 

[alanfp]

1. Thanks for finding that link - it's a bit more nuanced than I had thought. So water must indeed be provided free, but premises can charge for use of the glass and staff time to pour it and hand it to you (which seems logical to me).
2. I note that we're now down the scale from "in general" to "fairly common to see" but I understand what you're saying

 

[Whitechapel]

On a site where supporters expect to be able to get the discount and benefit of a season ticket without the commitment, I guess I should not be disappointed by some of the responses on here.

We live at a time where more and more people are being forced in to substandard living conditions, and where there is a pandemic for (in particular) young men feeling isolated which leads to a raft of mental health issues and in extreme cases; suicide.

I can’t afford the rent for my own place in Shoreham/Worthing so I currently live with a live-in landlord who quite often has his young son around. Before that my last two living arrangements were HMO’s. Houses that had been snapped up by some well-off knobhead who then turned every inch of space in to more and more bedrooms to rent out. Neither of these had a communal area beyond the shared kitchen. In all 3 of these situations, it was impossible for me to have friends around unless we all cramped up in to my room which was barely big enough for me to exist in.

I’m not ashamed to admit that my mental health in both HMO’s was at absolute rock bottom and being able to go to the pub with my mates was my escape. You can imagine how lockdown hit me and that was taken away. I’ve discussed it briefly on here before but safe to say rolling up my doctors note for depression to sniff coke with was a low point I wouldn’t wish on most people.

For those reasons I find it quite hard to demonise 3 people drinking tap water in a bar without any real back story.

Was the bar so full that some people couldn’t get tables? If not then how detrimental is their presence?

How often do these people drink there? Are they regulars the landlord knows who normally drink? Or have they rolled up and done this on their first visit? Do they do this regularly?

How long were they there? When do they get paid? Are the people who have had issues with drink and are trying to slowly normalise themselves in to an environment they want to feel comfortable in again without drinking so they can wrestle back a missing part of their social life?

More and more young people are being forced in to situations where they don’t have a safe space to meet with friends. They don’t have the option to go round one of their houses because they don’t have their own houses. Where else is there; especially in the winter months where “beach” or “park” isn’t an option? Coffee shops and restaurants have the same issue. Sporting events are getting more and more expensive. The gym isn’t a place you can sit and talk. Is the option forcing more lonely young men back online and only leaving their house for work? Because that’s the reason people like Andrew Tate have became so successful. Lonely men at their wits ends.

Pubs in particular at their best are community hubs; a public house. Somewhere to meet when the world is getting you down. Is there a chance the lads you saw are you just cheap stakes who wanted a free night out? Yes, potentially. But there’s also a chance it’s a lad whose life is falling apart and his mates have dragged him out the house when they’re all skint.

One of my best mates is recently out of rehab but wants to be able to drink “normally” in the future.That means there will probably be a situation where me and him sit in a boozer with a water to help him ease back in to that atmosphere slowly. We’re currently struggling to find a meeting place because our friendship revolved around boozers and there isn’t really a like-for-like replacement.

I don’t think you’re a bad person, I normally enjoy your posts on here but I think it’s safe to say that intentionally or unintentionally you portray yourself on here as somebody who is financially comfortable and enjoys dining out and going for drinks. That means I think it’s fairly safe to say that you might have a blind spot for why someone drinking water in a pub isn’t some freeloading, scum of the earth pisstaker.

I get your point, it’s not something I’d make a habit of doing (in fact the last time I tried to drink just a water in a pub solo they told me no and I left) but I can’t vilify someone when there’s an entire universe of explanations - especially in the current financial climate.

Disappointing is a very silly way of looking at people disagreeing on this issue, imo like.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

We live at a time where more and more people are being forced in to substandard living conditions, and where there is a pandemic for (in particular) young men feeling isolated which leads to a raft of mental health issues and in extreme cases; suicide.

I can’t afford the rent for my own place in Shoreham/Worthing so I currently live with a live-in landlord who quite often has his young son around. Before that my last two living arrangements were HMO’s. Houses that had been snapped up by some well-off knobhead who then turned every inch of space in to more and more bedrooms to rent out. Neither of these had a communal area beyond the shared kitchen. In all 3 of these situations, it was impossible for me to have friends around unless we all cramped up in to my room which was barely big enough for me to exist in.

I’m not ashamed to admit that my mental health in both HMO’s was at absolute rock bottom and being able to go to the pub with my mates was my escape. You can imagine how lockdown hit me and that was taken away. I’ve discussed it briefly on here before but safe to say rolling up my doctors note for depression to sniff coke with was a low point I wouldn’t wish on most people.

For those reasons I find it quite hard to demonise 3 people drinking tap water in a bar without any real back story.

Was the bar so full that some people couldn’t get tables? If not then how detrimental is their presence?

How often do these people drink there? Are they regulars the landlord knows who normally drink? Or have they rolled up and done this on their first visit? Do they do this regularly?

How long were they there? When do they get paid? Are the people who have had issues with drink and are trying to slowly normalise themselves in to an environment they want to feel comfortable in again without drinking so they can wrestle back a missing part of their social life?

More and more young people are being forced in to situations where they don’t have a safe space to meet with friends. They don’t have the option to go round one of their houses because they don’t have their own houses. Where else is there; especially in the winter months where “beach” or “park” isn’t an option? Coffee shops and restaurants have the same issue. Sporting events are getting more and more expensive. The gym isn’t a place you can sit and talk. Is the option forcing more lonely young men back online and only leaving their house for work? Because that’s the reason people like Andrew Tate have became so successful. Lonely men at their wits ends.

Pubs in particular at their best are community hubs; a public house. Somewhere to meet when the world is getting you down. Is there a chance the lads you saw are you just cheap stakes who wanted a free night out? Yes, potentially. But there’s also a chance it’s a lad whose life is falling apart and his mates have dragged him out the house when they’re all skint.

One of my best mates is recently out of rehab but wants to be able to drink “normally” in the future.That means there will probably be a situation where me and him sit in a boozer with a water to help him ease back in to that atmosphere slowly. We’re currently struggling to find a meeting place because our friendship revolved around boozers and there isn’t really a like-for-like replacement.

I don’t think you’re a bad person, I normally enjoy your posts on here but I think it’s safe to say that intentionally or unintentionally you portray yourself on here as somebody who is financially comfortable and enjoys dining out and going for drinks. That means I think it’s fairly safe to say that you might have a blind spot for why someone drinking water in a pub isn’t some freeloading, scum of the earth pisstaker.

I get your point, it’s not something I’d make a habit of doing (in fact the last time I tried to drink just a water in a pub solo they told me no and I left) but I can’t vilify someone when there’s an entire universe of explanations - especially in the current financial climate.

Disappointing is a very silly way of looking at people disagreeing on this issue, imo like.

I get your points. As you say, there’s a wealth of explanations regarding why the card playing table in the pub were drinking water. That said, I’d be willing to put money on the fact they were not down on their luck either financially or mentally, they were one guy and two girls who looked like they were at fashion college, and were nipping out to smoke joints periodically. I really didn’t have an issue with what they were drinking….more they only had one bottle of sparkling mineral water between them in almost 3 hours.

I feel it’s more down to changing times, kids these days don’t seem to drink or party like they used to…they prefer soft drinks, weed and board games. Which is fine, but not great for the bar owner.

 

[Dave the OAP]

This point about free water. On board all cruise ships, once you have sat down, the first thing a server brings over is water, normally iced cold, and top ups every time you need one. Yes, nearly everyone has an alcohol or soft drink also, but water is a given.

not everyone also has wine/ beer etc with their meals and on board although you can get fizzy and still water, premium waters like Evian, etc are pricy.

restaurants are certainly expensive these days, as are coffees! How a cafe on the seafront can justify 8.20 for two americanos with hot milk is bloody outrageous!

 

[rippleman]

Head of down to LLF's eaterie in Worthing.

If you don't want a drink you are under no obligation to have one. If you just want water with your meal, it is served from the fridge at no charge.

Yes, margins are slim but a good, experienced host will value their customers. They do have a discretionary "minimum spend" at busy times (although I've never personally seen it applied).

 

[BadFish]

So what's the consensus, do restaurants want us to eat out less and buy overpriced drinks or eat out more and drink tap water?

Obviously the option of dealng with the problem of eating out being expensive and wages stagnating is not an option. Bloody trans people with blue hair and immigrants.