This Taco Bell Lies About Water In Order To Sell The Bottled Kind

By cwaltersJanuary 29, 2009

Seriously, has it come to this? Now we have to resort to fountain drink station sleuthing to figure out whether our local fast food restaurant is lying to us? Nathan used his knowledge of drink machine buttonry to figure out that the machine does indeed offer up plain municipal water. The “water” button has been colored black with a marker, however, to help it blend in with the machine.

Back in November, I went to a Taco Bell in the Towne Center mall in Marietta, GA. When I was at the register I noticed a sign telling me that they didn’t have any water in their drink machine but, never fear, there were water bottles available for purchase at the register.

I was skeptical of this because they served fruit punch or lemonade at the machine, and most drink machines have both a switch for carbonated water (under one of the sodas) and a switch for water (under one of the fruit drinks). When I looked at the fruit drink, I noticed there was a button on the front of it that curiously looked like it had been colored over with a black sharpee to match the color of the machine. Sure enough, when I pushed the “invisible” button, out came a glorious waterfall.

@nathansmart: Insofar as you have the right to fuck over your customers and employees, Georgia and the rest of Dixie is libertarian to a fault. On social issues like who you can crawl under the covers with, it’s a whole other story.

@SabreDC: Except the water that comes from the machine is run through a filtering system. I`d take that over local pipe water any day, even though I realize that the filtering really only takes out the calcium and iron.

@wardawg: There’s no filters on the soda machine. I’ve been in lots of back rooms at restaurants fixing their PCs and never once saw filtration on the fresh water inlet on the machine. They just hook up a hose from a nearby tap to the inlet on the machine. It’s the only way they can use the boxed syrup which is concentrate.

Concession trailers, due to their not often being located near a source of potable water use the canisters which are pre-mixed syrup with the appropriate amount of water then carbonated.

@bairdwallace: Managed at McDs for 4 years, I don’t know what it’s like down there in the states but all the stores up here run filtered water through the beverage machines, carbonated or not. Keeps the nozzles from clogging up with sediment.

@MacQix: True, but the law probably doesn’t prescribe the method of delivery. Which means that you (restaurateur) have every right to make it tough or impossible for your customers to get their own water from the fountain in your dining room, provided you’re willing to take on the additional labor to give them a cup of free H20 from behind the counter.

I suspect that what’s behind this isn’t entirely a desire to withhold free water, but rather seeing too many water customers “accidentally” filling their cups with soda.

@Kicken: When I was working at the MSP airport over the summer, I saw a TSA “officer” grab a water cup from one of the McDonalds and fill it up with sprite (for whatever reason, this location had the water cups right next to the machine, no need to talk to anyone to get one).

@melmoitzen: If you order water at Panera Bread, they only give you a small cup. I’m guessing this is a deterrent against stealing soda because, if you’re willing to get up 5-6 times to get the equivalent of a medium soda that costs the restaurant a few pennies, you can have it.

@Yankees368: I don’t even think this is necessarily about whether it’s required to give out free water, but whether it’s okay to lie and tell people they have to buy water because the machine doesn’t have it… when it really does.

@Kicken: That same logic applies to every crime, but with witnesses involved the ‘logic’ just sounds ridiculous. Besides, most fast food places have cameras, so if really they feel like persuing you they can try to, minor theft or not.

Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they didn’t put the sign up. If they just colored the button black so fewer people would use it, fine. But lying outright that they do not have water, that’s just sneaky.

Consumerist needs a category for these posts with non-corporate signs that may not be an official indication of corporate policy. I must say, I get a kick out of them the most.

@SabreDC: I don’t think that would help their cause. If they had a great big “WATER HERE” button then it would probably mean less “is this it? No, that’s Coke. Is THIS it? No, that’s Sprite” mistakes. They just want to charge people for water.

@outphase: Due to the nature of franchising from a national corporation, it would fall under interstate commerce…for the same reason that you’d be paying local tax if you mail ordered a Chalupa from a Taco Bell from another state…

Tell the manager that you wont stand for his underhanded tricks, write a letter to corporate and get your lunch at a different taco bell…

We just had the TB nearest me close because they couldn’t get an order right to save themselves and everyone avoided the place. The next one south of it was always at least 1/2 full and now has more customers.

This is why I carry my kleen kanteen with me and I don’t have to ask for a cup for water I already have my own cup!

IMO that taco bell just doesn’t want to give away free water, but have no problems charging you for it. I’d be interested to see if more people are now asking for water instead of soda to save money. Maybe htey are trying to make up for lost revenue do to lower soda sales.

If you eat at Taco bell in the first place, you wont care putting something in your body like soda anyway. Cant really complain about not having tap water IMO. Its like going to the ballpark and expecting to get a 2 dollar beer.

I was the only customer in there, at around 2pm on a Wednesday. The cashier was an EXTREMELY friendly woman, praising how greatful she is to have a job with such fantastic managers (one of whom was standing right there).

Eventually it led to her talking about how hard her life is at the moment, and going on (and on) about how God will help her through. Normally, I’m offended by being confronted with God via customer service, but she was so nice I didn’t care.

I order a medium cup to fill it with Mountain Dew Baja Blast (the best part of Taco Bell). Halfway through filling, she says “No, take this bigger cup!”. I accept it, and as I am filling it I realize that it is covered in drived coca cola syrup. Again, she was so nice, and on such ard times, I didn’t complain.

While sitting there, eating my taco, listening to her STILL talking about The Lord, I mention my cup is all sticky. Instead of offering another cup, she comes over with a cold wet rag (I assume used to clean the tables) adn wipes it all over my cup! I didn’t want to touch the cup, then handle food I’m putting into my mouth.

I was so weirded out by the series of events, I just finished what I was chewing, toss out the cup and remaining food, and left. I intended on taking the cup with me, and riving aroudn with it, but I didnt’ want something that sticky in my car. Besdies, the large cup wouldn’t have fit in my cup holders >_<

Also – beware of table bussers who spray that “unidentified blue cleaning stuff” onto the table without removing the salt and pepper shakers. The fact that I’m using extra salt is bad enough, but salt and the blue stuff?

Sorry – I have a thing about unnecessary cross-contamination especially by things that are unidentified.

@shorty63136: Me too on all of that. People laugh at me for ‘setting the table’ at places but I cannot let anything I might eat with rest on a table at a restaurant so I get put napkins under silverware, drinks, etc.

@aguacarbonica: Exactly. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything about all the religious talk, but I would say something about the whole cup situation.

I didn’t, because this woman just seemed so nice/strange/on hard times that it wasn’t worth it to me to make it an issue. I wasn’t as concerned about offending her, as much as I didn’t want get her in any trouble.

Trust me, normally I speak up! I’ve worked enough in customer service that I know what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Here in PA restaurants are required to give customer free water. Years ago at sit-down joints they would automatically bring you a glass of water before they took your drink orders. They stopped doing this once we started getting droughts. However the law still remains in place and you must be given free water upon request.

@HalOfBorg: I can’t remember which fast food place I went to, but one day their soda fountain DID break. It looked like the manager ran down to the nearby 7-11 and bought a selection of soft drinks and bottled water, which was in an iced tub by the register. They were selling the bottles for the price of a medium drink, but if you wanted water, they just tossed you a small water bottle for free.

I wish I could remember which store did that as that sort of service deserves repeat business.

@ktoth04: How ’bout it. Ah, America. The land where we pay fast food restaurants for the privilege of getting our own drinks. The land where we pay grocery stores for the privilege of ringing up and bagging our own groceries…

When will the major fast food joints (McD, BK, and YUM brands, specifically) finally see the cost savings in eliminating unnecessary counter jobs altogether? Replace the 15-year-old behind the counter with a terminal for me to order my own sandwich (which will have a better chance of being correct) and use that saved money on improving your other services.

@SabreDC: You know it still seems to me that we should get a discount off our groceries when we have to scan/bag them ourselves.. We are clearly saving the store money.. and it isn’t as convenient as they make it out to be.

Sure if there are tons of other checkers doing people’s baskets full of stuff then it would save me time to check out my one or two things myself at a self-checkout.. but when they close down all the other lines and only offer self-checkout for everyone it doesn’t save me any time at all.. so it should save me money for doing the work myself.

I know in Texas a resteraunt must provide water for free if requested. A man can die here in the summer heat without proper hydration. Forcing you to buy bottled is ridiculous when municple water is every bit as clean and in some cases cleaner then bottled water.

You could just ask for a free drink. When I was young, broke, and brazen, I used to go into the Taco Bell and get “A bean burrito, a Burrito Supreme, and a free drink”. I ended up with a free drink, oh, about half to three-quarters of the time.

I’m not sure if it’s all machines but they’re usually hooked up to tap water, a CO2 canister, and many many pouches of concentrated syrup. The machine actually mixed them all on the spot when you push the button to dispense your drink.

If they actually didn’t have water, the machine wouldn’t work at all or it’d be outputting syrup that could send you into a diabetic coma in about 5 sips.

I don’t see much problem here, what with nearly everyone unable to exit their door without a bottle of water firmly in hand, as if we were all living in some dystopian future reminiscent of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” trilogy.

So people WANT their water in bottles, and the management is rightly afraid of the liability inherent in having people refilling those bottles, pushing their saliva-coated bottle necks against the water spout, and giving the next person to fill their water bottle cholera or something. (Remember John Snow in 1854 and the famous water pump? He may have been wrong (and yes, he was wrong!) but that was how epidemiology got started. (Not to be confused with entomology, epistemology, or etymology, of course.)

What nobody has taken into consideration is WHY they did this. It’s automatically assumed that it’s because they want to sell their bottled water. Wrong.

When I was a teenager, I worked in Hardee’s, and I know precisely why Taco Bell did this. Thieving, sneaky, lying, trashy customers. It’s because of YOU people (generally speaking) that this has to be done in restaurants. We had SO many people coming up to the counter and ordering “water” (a free cup) then turning to the soda machine and pumping themselves some free soda. If confronted about it, they’d simply flip you the bird and walk out. What were you going to do about it?

It got to the point that we finally disconnected the soda machine, and only allowed customers to have soda that we pumped for them ourselves. Because of the theives that are most customers, the honest customers could no longer get their free refills without having to come ask for them.

I guarantee this is precisely what’s happening at this Taco Bell. POS Customers stealing from them has driven them to try and “hide” the water button.

I know the Consumerist is for picking on the “bad” companies, but sometimes people need to look at these things realistically. Often, the consumer is to blame.