To Give or Not to Give - Free Water in Cafes/Restaurants

Imagine this: you get dressed in a decent outfit, and prepare to go out for a lovely dinner. You have made a reservation at a relatively well-known-and-supposedly-good restaurant to avoid having to wait too long for your seat. You sit down in the relatively posh restaurant, where the waiter pulls out your seat. After a bit of deliberating, you place your order. Just as the waiter is walking away, you ask for a glass of water – only to be told that you have to buy bottled water.

Imagine this: you get dressed for work and make sure your outfit is neat and presentable. As you stroll towards your first customer, you straighten your back in confidence and plaster a smile onto your face. Everything goes smoothly – you pull her chair out for her, you place a folded napkin onto her lap, and take her order – then she asks for water. You spend the next 5 minutes explaining why she has to pay for a glass of water in a posh restaurant where she is already paying $50 for her meal.

I simply can’t make sense of it.

I don’t understand why some restaurants are increasingly fleecing their customer’s money off on water. Yes, you read right. “Fleecing” – that’s the only way I can conceive it. Well, wouldn’t you when 250ml of water would cost you $5? I’m not even talking about the cost of water at some posh restaurants yet – just some cafes that teenagers like to hang out at.

I read an article some time ago about this issue. Here’s what some restaurants are arguing:

1. Costs of providing free water
2. Patrons who order something cheap OR worse – nothing at all – and occupy the table for a prolonged period of time just drinking water
3. Its better quality water for customers – healthier too

Honestly, I don’t see much sense in their arguments, and here’s why:

1. How much can providing free water cost you? Sure there are electricity bills and all, but really, the going rate for electricity in Singapore isn’t THAT expensive. Your electricity bill depends on two things: the energy consumption of your appliance, and how often you use it. The former can be easily changed and any bills chalked up due to high energy consumption of your water purifier or electrical appliance can be remedied and decreased. There is also the alternative method of having electricity free water purifiers – though these work slower, a system could be in place to prepare the purifiers so that the water will be purified overnight – wasting no time, and no electricity.

2. Café Cartel offers not only free water but free bread too – but you don’t see them deciding to suddenly start charging for their water, or bread. One may implement what café cartel has unofficial voiced out – that you can take free bread if you order a set meal. In the same sense, you can ensure that patrons only get their water if they have already ordered something. This will prevent patrons from depriving paying customers of a place to sit in the situation whereby the non-paying patrons are only drinking water.

(If you think no one will do this, think again. Some people, whilst waiting for their friends, or taking a break from walking, may sit themselves down in a café to drink free water, without a care in the world. I’ve personally seen it happen.)

As for the second concern where paying patrons order something cheap and glue their butts to their seats for the next 4 hours, look on the brighter side of things – at least they spent money buying that something cheap, and maybe it was even because they wanted some free water that they bought the item. This implies that your free water actually brought you business! On the other hand, restaurant or café owners can always approach these patrons during their peak hours and ask them to kindly give up their seat if they are done eating, because of the crowd. If you ask politely enough, I’m pretty sure you’ll get a good response more than half of the time. If there are empty tables still, then I don’t see a point in asking them to leave of course.

How about those who “happen” to leave a little on their plate you say? I agree it wouldn’t be too nice to ask them to leave if they have clearly not finished. However, performing a little subtle check – “excuse me, can I clear this?” or “excuse me, are you done with this?” – if you notice that the patrons have left that little bit for quite some time now may be a good idea. If they agree to your question, you can wait a while before asking them to leave.

Most likely though, making it obvious that there’s a long queue will probably help to kick start them into initiative action to leave. This can be done in cafes more than restaurants I think, by positioning your queue lines in an obvious enough position for seated patrons to take notice of.

Besides, maybe allowing them to stay there may turn out to be a good thing for the future. It may build a good “feel” for your café or restaurant and they may be more likely to return – and spend more on their next visit.

3. This usually refers to bottled water more than any method of preparation. To this, all I have to say is this – think of the process of treating and bottling water. How much healthier, in terms of lower contamination rates, are you talking about? In fact, doesn’t this depend on your kitchen practices? Are you saying that you can’t prepare water such that it is uncontaminated or at least near the levels of cleanliness that bottled water purports?

Talking about oxygenated water and mountain water versus treated/purified/boiled tap water, there really isn’t much of an undisputed scientific difference. Does it justify your excuse to start charging ridiculous prices for water?

Now think of the opportunity cost of not providing free water.

You could potentially drive away customers. Here I’m talking about two types of customers: Those who don’t order drinks because they prefer water, but may not be willing to fork out so much for it, and those who don’t order the drinks because they don’t feel like drinking what’s on the menu. Either type of customer identified here must have a drink to go with their food. Wouldn’t you think earning money on food versus potentially losing the business, or worse good will, of these customers is better? Don’t forget that reviews spread fast and most effectively through word of mouth. Don’t underestimate its power. Whilst it is true that if customers like the food there, they may still patronize your café or restaurant, you still stand to lose out on some occasions where they choose another place to dine simply because they would have to fork out more money for drinks, which they could avoid, especially in big groups. This is more probable with the preference of beverage mentioned above for these types of customers.

Don’t forget to consider the cases where parents want free water for their children. Now, the term “children” can mean anyone from the age of 1 (in this case, the need for hot water for milk perhaps) to anyone till the age of 12 (presumably the standard gauge in Singapore). Parents may not be willing to fork out money to buy a drink for their child because their child may not be able to finish the drink. Parents may not want to waste the leftover amounts. They may not be able to drink the leftovers on their children’s behalf to avoid wastage if they are too full, or if the choice of drink is not in their preference, may not want to drink it at all. At the same time, buying just one drink to share between a parent and a child may not satisfy the parent’s thirst.

Of course, parents can always bring beverages for their children, yet there is the related issue to this water crisis, that outside drinks are not allowed – no matter what. This is another highly debated issue in relation to children and their needs.

Don’t forget you’d probably have to deal with (difficult) customers enquiring or complaining (for lack of a better word) about the “no free water” policy. This is something that could be avoided if you provided free water, especially where children are concerned.

As I said before, I simply can’t understand the sense of not offering free water, except for profit reason. Perhaps someone would like to explain it to me?