explicit drink refill policies would be nice

I grew up in a state where free refills was not a thing, coming here it took some getting used to.

Last week I ate at a Nulu restaurant. I ordered an unsweet iced tea ($2).

What arrived seemed to be an 8oz juice / water glass full of ice cubes with the tea. OK, fine, not 12 or 16oz, whatever. But not a lot of tea either.

Later in my meal the server asked if I'd like more tea. I said yes. A fresh glass w/ tea was brought to me.

On my bill - two iced teas at $2 each.

I find this a little off-putting. I could have been informed that refills were not gratis -- especially since we're in a locale where free refills are fairly common.

I fully appreciate that drinks are an income source, that wait staff need to be compensated for their service labor, and so on.

I didn't need a fresh glass, I needed a top up. If you need to charge for each soft drink then how about making everything after the first cost less.

I'd prefer not to be the guy only ordering tap water... but.

Most restaurants do list which drinks feature free refills on their menus. (chains do this for sure) To not do so, or to not inform the guest at the time of request, seems a bit unjust. The only place that I think could get away with this is upper level fine dining, where if you have to ask you can't afford it.

I don't believe I've ever seen a place locally they charged for refills of iced tea, especially when it's an extremely small glass to begin with. In most restaurants nonalcoholic beverages are very overpriced IMHO in this case it seems to be overpriced to the point of ridiculous especially considering the size of the original glass.

I would certainly appreciate if you would share the name of this restaurant with us so we can all be aware of the situation when we visit, or not visit.

That is just nuts! It would be one thing if the server brought a bottle of tea to the table with your glass of ice, which would tell you on the front-end that you would be paying for "ANOTHER" versus more.

I think the price of beverages (especially something like brewed iced tea) has gotten quite ridiculous honestly.

Sometimes restaurants pad the beverage price to avoid increasing the entree price. So in some ways that beverage pays for the steak.

Sometimes restaurants pad the beverage price to avoid increasing the entree price. So in some ways that beverage pays for the steak.

While I realize this is the case the incident posted by OP is absurd. If the survey had been in a 16 oz glass or something similar I would probably understand it but he stated it was an 8 oz glass that had been filled with ice, that's ridiculous! I do also think that he should have been told that he was going to have to pay for the second glass.

Oh, I agree. This situation above is a uncalled for, I was referring more to the price of a fountain drink in restaurants these days.

It would not be fair for me to name the place here. Tickets can get rung up incorrectly. And I did not make my questions known to the server or the manager at the time.

I will certainly question portion size if it happens again.