Bloody annoying: those places that make a fuss about a glass of tap water

Adeline loves food, lots of it and often, both at home and out. Usually, that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Eddie’s Food Frustrations, she shares her bewilderment. This week, she has to get something off her chest about those places that don’t serve tap water.

Every now and then I go to a restaurant where, by some kind of hocus-pocus, a bottle of tap water appears on the table. Before I’ve even ordered anything. They usually serve it in one of those lovely refillable bottles, with glasses and lemon on the side and, if you’re lucky, ice cubes too. When this happens to me, I sit there beaming with satisfaction. Ideally, I’d kiss the staff in gratitude, but they might find that a little odd.

So instead I tell them 100 times how much I love water (?). Which is considered about just as strange. I don’t care, because tap water is the icing on the cake for me.

Stingy tap-water types

Tell me a restaurant’s tap-water policy and I’ll know what kind of bread I’m dealing with. At one place, you get it without asking; at the next, you can choose between mineral water and tap water, and sometimes there’s a ban on it altogether. They’ll pour you three sips at most so you can swallow a paracetamol, but that’s it. Good grief, what a hassle these stingy tap-water types are. Why do you make things so complicated when a guest asks for a glass of tap water?

For all I care, charge a euro for serving it, but don’t pretend you don’t have tap water in the building. I (thankfully) can’t remember the last time tap water wasn’t available in our country, so I think it’s a lame excuse.

The get-out protocol

And people, if your guests are too stingy to order anything decent alongside that tap water, surely you want to get them back outside as quickly as possible? Rather than letting them share one blue-label sparkling water all evening? With this kind of customer, you simply put the get-out protocol into effect as soon as possible. Whisk the courses through at lightning speed, ask every five minutes whether they’d like to order anything else and clear the table before they’re finished. Once they leave, put them on the stingy guests list, for which there will never be a table available again. But your lovely guests really shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences when it comes to tap water.

You serve tap water to the big drinkers, who are trying to stay sober alongside all those bottles of wine. Or who need to cool down a strong espresso. Like me. And if I don’t drink one time, I’ll order sparkling water and all kinds of soft drinks out of sheer embarrassment on your behalf, just to make sure you still turn a bit of a profit. So let’s stop making such a fuss about a glass of water from the tap. Amen.

Read also:

• Say what?! That’s how much a glass of water costs in top-end hospitality
• Keuringsdienst van Waarde: water filters are a scam
• Never boil water over again