Honor System = Still Free

Honorable = Pay the fee or don't take the refill

I somehow don't believe this was approved by corporate.

This will cost more money than it will make. People will simply forego the refill most often and some of those people will go somewhere else after that.

Southern hospitality will never allow that to happen down here.

@RandomMutterings: Semi-Honorable = Drop two pennies and Take a refill

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this is probably a store/franchisee policy and not corporate wide.

No "thanks Mgmt"? Sounds like the employees are trying to earn a little extra cash.

So does that mean they lowered the price of their drinks? Most restaurants charge about $2 for a large. I always thought the high cost was to offset the refills? Am I mistaken?

so a small refill costs the same as a large refill?

Looks like I'll have to start drinking more sprite, I mean water.

$ .75 for $ .10 of soda. That's seems about right.

@snoop-blog: Next story: Subway demands to smell your drink to make sure you aren't smuggling sprite out of the building for the drive home.

So it's honorable for suckers to pay the 75 cents, but nothing is said about the honor of people charging those 75 cents for a refill?
Believe me, a multimillion dollar corporation has no honor. At all. Especially one that uses customers "honor" to make more money.

If the soda machines are self-serve, then you should imply free-refills. If they don't want to offer free refills, then you better be filling the cup up for me yourself. I'm not going to do your work for you and pay you for the privelege unless I get some compensation.

There WAS a Subway where I live that did the same thing. The funny thing is that it was the only Subway of 3 in the area that charged for refills.

I don't believe this is a corporate decision but rather that of the greedy franchise owner.

This is crazy. It costs $.50 TOPS for one of their largest drinks to begin with and you pay $2 for that.. another 3 quarters on top of that is ridiculous.

I used to work in fast food, the bags that are hooked up to the machines last 2-3 weeks, plus they cost $20 (could be slightly more now this was 5 years ago) but still this is BS on a massive scale. Subway is already pretty limiting with the amount of meat they put on there subs.

Considering that a refill only costs the store about 5 cents since it's just syrup, water, and CO2 mixed together, they could potentially make a killing on it.

Go up to the register and tell them you need a receipt. I bet the story changes.

@Hobz: Very valid point. If it was a company wide thing, every subway would have it.

Although I disagree with your greed thing. Since Subway probably sets the prices and promotions, the franchise owner may be having financial problems, and his last option before closing the store. While most of us would believe just increasing the price of the food would be appropriate, he may not have the power to do that.

@friendlynerd: Yeah are they paying taxes on that 75c? I doubt they are, which would be illegal correct?

I wonder if this franchise also has a credit card minimum, which I understand isn't permitted by Visa corporate probably has no "official" policy on this. Is it only me, or is it that businesses are trying to nickel and dime you every chance they get? Maybe the franchisee is greedy. They already charge the same as a 2 liter bottle at the stores and nobody really drinks that much, do they?

Can you imagine how many $.10 cups of soda a customer has to take to make it a financial loss for the $1.89 soda they bought?

If there is a refill fee then move the dispenser behind the counter. Self-serve dispenser = free refills.
I love to see how they enforce this.

I wonder if charging for refills is against franchise rules. A lot of times it is since it could potentially harm the reputation of other subways. As far as I knew, franchised restaurants, were supposed be so similar, you should get the exact same product/service no matter who owned them or where they are located.

Where the drink fountain is located makes no difference. They usually have the chips on the other side of the counter, do you steal these as well? I worked at a Jimmy John's that had chips on the other side of the counter, no one ever tried to steal them but if they did, we'd jump over the counter and stop them, physically, which you are allowed to do if you physically saw them steal from you.

there are some subways that i've seen with signs like this for a long time now, or a sign saying there's a limit of one free refill. like others have said, this is likely just at this location.

The circle of life...

They charge me 75 cents for a refill. I get a "water" = sprite.

They smell my drink before I leave. I bring my cup from last time and pay 75 cents to fill it up instead of 2 bucks.

They put the soda machine behind the register and load it up with ice. I bring my own water bottle.

They ban outside food/drinks. I stop going there.

They offer promotional deal for combos. I go back.

They charge 75 cents for a refill...and so on.

Yo, stupid Subway.... if the soda fountain is available to customers with the purchase of a cup... the refills are free.

Not making enough $, then charge more for the farking cup.

I know this is beside the point, but...

Do people actually even spend enough time in a Subway to warrant a second cup of cola? I've NEVER seen anyone order food at Subway that wasn't take out, and I visit them a few times a month on average.

"I eat a lot of sandwiches, who doesn't man, sandwiches are easy to eat. But I hate sandwiches at New York deli's, too much fuckin' meat on the sandwich. It's like a cow with a cracker on either side. "What would you like sir?" "A pastrami sandwich." "Anything else?" "Yeah, a loaf of bread and some other people." "What kind of bread?" "Rye… no, fuck, banana… you got banana bread?" "What kind of cheese?" "Cottage." "Get the fuck out! I'm not makin' a banana bread, pastrami, cottage cheese sandwich. That will severely ruin my reputation."
-Mitch Hedberg

@snoop-blog:

Taxes can be collected from the consumer or built into the product price. As long as taxes are paid the State don't care.

Having said that, I doubt most mom & pops are that astute regarding the sales tax laws and I doubt sales taxes are being paid on the extra $0.75 in the cash box.

Man, things must be getting bad. In most cases, sodas are like 1000% profit. It's so cheap but they sell it for so much...

would be even better if they enforced $.75 for each refill acquired

@masonreloaded: It's not uncommon for all refills to cost the same. At 7-Eleven you can refill a 64 oz Double Gulp (do they still make that?) for the same price as a 16 oz Gulp.

Yeah, a Double Gulp is 4 times as much as a Gulp.

I stopped going to Subway about the time they dropped their stamp program. The company's been going down-hill for quite some time since then based on my experience hanging with a friend who just had to go there for lunch. I prefer my local sandwich shop chains: better sandwiches and salads at a better price.

@Adisharr:
When I worked in the food service industry (~10 years ago) it was about $35 for a 5 box of syrup IIRC. That gets mixed at a ratio of 5.5:1 with carbonated water (carbonated water being the 5.5). I'll skip over the math, but it comes out to about a penny per ounce. So a 32 oz soda (their larger size) costs them $.32, and their smaller 22 oz costs them $.22. Give or take.

I saw a similar sign at Wegmans the other day. It actually surprised me, because Wegmans tends to be the kind of store that's just "better" than the competition. In the future I'll just drink more slowly when I eat at Wegmans.

@Corporate-Shill:

I doubt sales taxes are being paid on the extra $0.75 in the cash box.

Why wouldn't they be paying tax on it? It's no different a process than ringing up the cost of a sandwich. They have to ring up some key or code to open the cash drawer and it gets recorded as a sale. Taxes paid on sales. Most of these places are pretty stringent on the reason why the cash drawer opens in the first place to keep the staff from giving away (or taking) the store. Usually takes a manager to do some kind of override with a key to open it up in the case of a change mistake, for example.

Unless it's just going into a cup with a lid on top with a slot in it next to the fountain dispenser which I didn't see in the photo.

My question is where is the picture taken? This is quite common at Subways in malls. I guess because anyone with a cup can walk up and refill their drink, even if the cup is from McDonalds. Plus, Subways in malls and arenas jack their prices up big time. $7.50 for a foot long.

I do think the title of this post is really misleading, because this obviously isn't a new policy for the entire chain.

So you guys will pay 5$ for a sandwich w/3 pieces of lunch meat on it and not complain, but think it's outrageous to pay .75 cents for your second soda (half the price of the first). The soda machine is Subways biggest profit maker as has been pointed out several times. In the last year the prices of cheese and produce has gone through the roof, sodas are one of the things that lets them keep sandwiches below 8$. Keep on stealing them, next thing you know they'll just charge you 2.25$ for your drink instead of $1.50.

So $1.50 used to get you 20 ounces of soda x2. Now it gets you 20 ounces x1. Since not too long ago I used to be able to spend $5 and get 2 gallons of gas should I be able to go pump $5 worth of gas, go pay for it, then go outside and put more gas in my tank to make it 2 gallons before I leave? No? Oh, it's because the gas station wasn't nice enough to give me twice what I paid for for free for the first couple of years I went there. How about when you're done w/your french fries at McDonalds? You get another order the same size for free? No, you don't even get a discount on your second order of fries. Can you go to a gas station, buy a 20oz bottle of coke, drink it, then go inside and fill it up w/the fountain soda machine? No? Why not? Because it's a second drink.

Subway makes a great profit off each soda they sell, probably about $1.20 and they probably sell a more than 100 a day. This helps to make the payroll for the (underpaid) employees and to offset the cost of the rising ingredients of the sandwiches. The profit margin was being cut in half by some people, why don't you see if the employees will make your sandwich for 3$ an hour instead of $6?

If you can afford a five dollar sandwich, and are a glutton to the point where you have to drink two sodas at one meal (more than anyone should drink in a day imo) then you're just going to have to pony up $.75 for your second. I'm sure this will be a rising trend in the food service industries as our dollar becomes less and less elastic.

And btw, the people that call Subway a multi-million dollar corp kind of make me laugh, it's a franchise, the guy that owns the subway in Duluth, or Parkersburg, or w/e small town half of us are in is probably not a millionaire. The guy that owns the two subways in our town is kind of a prick, but he lives pretty humble. If I had to guess I'd put him around 120k a year, far cry from rich.

@CountryJustice: I may not spend enough time to drink an entire soda and get a refill while I'm still there, but I do fill my cup to the top (Even if I've only taken one drink) before I leave.

@testsicles:

That might just about cover the actual cost of the soda.

OMFG ....

The local subway charges $2.69 for bottled drinks...that you can buy next door at the convenience store for $1.29. I wouldn't be surprised if they start charging for refills.

The Quick Chek I go to (not sure about all Quick Cheks, it's a NJ regional convenience store known for good, cheap sub sandwiches and coffee) charges 40 cents for refills, also on the honor system, and it has seating, so it is realistic for me to want more. Normally, I'd balk at that, but the store is so reasonable otherwise (cheapest gasoline in town, 99 cent 32 oz drinks, 3.50 subs) I really don't have a problem with it.

Man, I sound like a corporate whore :( Who knew it just took some really good sandwiches to make me lose my distrust of any retail institution?

@nyaz: 2-3 Weeks? Where did you work at, the middle of nowhere? I go through syrup ever 2-3 days. I don't know where (or when) you buy syrup from, but most of them average about 40-50 dollars a box (for the standard size boxes).

What I have done in places like this is that I will start to fill up the cup and then after letting the foam go down, take a big drink, and then finish filling the cup. I figured that since I would end up drinking a good portion of it early on due to being thirsty, why not get the thirst out of the way now, and still have a full cup for when I start in on the meal.

This was a poor post on Consumerist part because the story title reads like ALL Subway's have instituted this policy.

I would imagine this is a franchisee's decision & not corporate.

Check facts before posting sensationalistic stories please.