Fountain Drinks

If a fountain drink tastes bad it usually means the syrup, or whatever gunk they mix with the carbonated water, needs to be refilled.

Use to see them change the filters on the machines. You do not want to know.

They dont ever clean the lines or fountain heads in those places. You have to clean those every day or youll get mold pretty quickly. I havent had a fountain drink in decades. And dont ask me about the slime in the ice machines ,youd never buy bagged ice again if youve seen what Ive seen.

You also never use ice machines. Tests always yield traces of poop. The same people who can’t wash their hands after pooping also reach into ice machines.

And, if you are a diet soda drinker your soda in a bottle/can contains nutrasweet while fountain drink version contains saccharin.

They don't clean their equipment. I can assure you they are taking cups from customers and doing refills, with germs transferred to the equipment. I see another national health crisis looming.

McDonalds and Taco Bell have great fountain drinks

Its God telling you to stop drinking that toxic slop, you fat whore. Drink water.

NO COKE! AGUA! AGUA!

I worked at a gas station, we cleaned the fountain drinks regularly because we drank it, so did the owners. We also didn't mess with the syrup ratios, because it was only 4 cents of syrup for a dollar soda. Fast food? No time to clean, dirty ice can be an issue too. If you get bad soda, don't go back. The whole place is probably dirty.

It’s because they haven’t calibrated the ratio of the syrup to water. Usually a technician cums to calibrate it to the exact recipe. Or they’re really cheap and purposely set it to give off very little syrup,

I love bagged ice.

I associate fountain drinks with the ones my mom used to buy me at Kresge's, with ruby red cherry syrup at the bottom of a Coke glass, delicious.

My FAVORITE soda when I was a kid- Root Beer, Hires was THE best.

[quote]Usually a technician cums to calibrate it

No wonder it always tastes so odd!

McDonald's sells a large soda for $1.00. Convenience stores charge more for a soda, plus, the customer is "making" their own soda. Maybe convenience store customers are more quick to say something about the taste. I have complained about flat soda. Why pay for a soda if it's flat.

Forgot to say that convenience stores know they're competing with that cheap large soda from McDonald's. Therefore, they keep up with the machines.

It's called Brixing. Each vendor is expected to calibrate the taps to a specific and consistent mix of soda/syrup. It's an honor type system , so there you go.

They taste like shit because they have actual shit in them

As some have roundaboutly said:

Customers see and work the machine at convenience stores - usually taking a sip right there. If the machine is gunky or the soda is weird the customer is there first hand - so they maintain those machines often.

Who knows what's going on with the dispenser behind the fast food drivethru window - and are you really going to go back thru the drivethru if your soda tastes weird. So those machines are left unmaintained for as long as possible.

R9 and R19 have the thread covered. That being said, the best fountain drinks I've ever had were served by volunteer booster parents working the concession stand at my hometown football games. (And I always asked for Diet, being a young gayling.) They most likely had donated Coke or Pepsi tanks swapped out before every game.

I, too, loved eating at Kresge’s.