Troubled Waters - The Tasting Panel Magazine

Issue: January 2007
Troubled Waters by: Anthony Dias Blue
“What would you like,” the server says: “still or sparkling?” And so begins the most egregious restaurant practice yet designed to separate you from your hard-earned dollars. What will arrive at your table is a bottle of water —most often two bottles of water, one still and one sparkling—at $8 (each). Do the math. Thirty-two ounces of water at 25 cents an ounce. With a 20% tip on the total bill, that brings the bottle to $9.60 and the ounce to 30 cents. The ruse is simple. When you sit down, the first thing served is water, followed by bread. So, while you are hungrily perusing the menu, you’re sipping water and eating bread. The server comes to take your order and, lo and behold, there’s a new bottle of water in his or her hand. Without a word, the bottle is opened and everyone’s water glass is refilled. You’re too busy concentrating on the menu to notice. Another $8. Ca-ching. At regular intervals throughout the meal, the server returns, toting more water. Even after the wine is poured, more water keeps appearing. And it’s not uncommon for servers to open more water after the dessert course. You get the check. Forty-eight bucks for water! (That’s $57.60 with tip.) You could have had a very nice bottle of wine for that amount. If only you had asked for tap water. Tap water? “But it’s not as pure as bottled water,” you say, “and certainly not as chic.” Oh really? A few years ago Coke had to remove its Dasani water from the UK market because it tested with levels of bromate, a carcinogen, higher than the British law allows. The EPA strictly monitors the quality of tap water. There’s no such attention paid to bottled water, much of which is simply filtered tap water. From a cost standpoint this is madness. Tap water costs about 13 cents a gallon; bottled water can cost more than 1,000 times that. The irony is that everyone is screaming bloody murder about the price of gasoline, a product that has to be put through expensive refining, but no one is sounding off about water. Yet bottled water is MORE EXPENSIVE ounce for ounce than gasoline. We’re upset about paying about three cents an ounce for gas when we have no problem paying as much as ten times that for WATER! Maybe it’s time to re-think our water usage, and for restaurants to stop gouging us with their watery little scam. Drink tap water and spend your money on wine: It’s delicious, good for you and most likely a whole lot cleaner than that bottle of water you’re about to buy.
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Issue: January 2007

Troubled Waters

by: Anthony Dias Blue

“What would you like,” the server says: “still or sparkling?”

And so begins the most egregious restaurant practice yet designed to separate you from your hard-earned dollars. What will arrive at your table is a bottle of water —most often two bottles of water, one still and one sparkling—at $8 (each). Do the math. Thirty-two ounces of water at 25 cents an ounce. With a 20% tip on the total bill, that brings the bottle to $9.60 and the ounce to 30 cents.

The ruse is simple. When you sit down, the first thing served is water, followed by bread. So, while you are hungrily perusing the menu, you’re sipping water and eating bread. The server comes to take your order and, lo and behold, there’s a new bottle of water in his or her hand. Without a word, the bottle is opened and everyone’s water glass is refilled. You’re too busy concentrating on the menu to notice. Another $8. Ca-ching.

At regular intervals throughout the meal, the server returns, toting more water. Even after the wine is poured, more water keeps appearing. And it’s not uncommon for servers to open more water after the dessert course. You get the check. Forty-eight bucks for water! (That’s $57.60 with tip.) You could have had a very nice bottle of wine for that amount. If only you had asked for tap water.

Tap water? “But it’s not as pure as bottled water,” you say, “and certainly not as chic.” Oh really? A few years ago Coke had to remove its Dasani water from the UK market because it tested with levels of bromate, a carcinogen, higher than the British law allows. The EPA strictly monitors the quality of tap water. There’s no such attention paid to bottled water, much of which is simply filtered tap water. From a cost standpoint this is madness. Tap water costs about 13 cents a gallon; bottled water can cost more than 1,000 times that. The irony is that everyone is screaming bloody murder about the price of gasoline, a product that has to be put through expensive refining, but no one is sounding off about water. Yet bottled water is MORE EXPENSIVE ounce for ounce than gasoline. We’re upset about paying about three cents an ounce for gas when we have no problem paying as much as ten times that for WATER!

Maybe it’s time to re-think our water usage, and for restaurants to stop gouging us with their watery little scam. Drink tap water and spend your money on wine: It’s delicious, good for you and most likely a whole lot cleaner than that bottle of water you’re about to buy.