As I have mentioned before, we weren’t a soda and apps family growing up. However, on those blue moon occasions when my parents did allow me to order a soda at a restaurant, I usually made one request of our server…

No ice, please.

I would always order my soft drinks sans ice for a main overarching reason: it just got in the way. Ice would clink on my teeth if I didn’t have a straw and it would water down the soda. And of course that water wasn’t living rent free in the glass—prior to its liquid form, it was taking up space in the form of ice.

Even as a 9-year-old kid, I knew that more ice equaled less soda.

When I would make these requests as a kid, the server at the restaurant or the attendant at the theater concession stand had no issue accommodating it. Soda itself was inexpensive and refills were mostly free, so who cares if some boy was asking for an extra ounce of product by asking for no ice?

The same laissez faire attitude does not exist in present day coffee culture at stands in Spokane. Many coffee empires in the Inland Northwest, including the stand just a minute from our house, will charge extra for what it calls light ice.

Yep, ask the barista to give you less of something and they will make you pay more for it.

This lotus drink has a proper amount of ice. However, many stands now fill your cup more than halfway with ice.

The customer vs. coffee house conflict is obvious: Many coffee stands scoop so much ice into a 20 oz. cup that probably only 12 oz. of the actual beverage is poured. Most customers recognize this and reasonably try to maximize the amount of actual product they receive for their $7.49 drink by asking for light ice.

But that is going to ruffle the feathers of the barista because she is trained to scoop a specific amount of ice. Costs and expenses are closely monitored and the coffee stands know that if they slack on ice, the profit margin on that drink is going to decrease. The stands will begrudgingly grant your ice request if you pay an upcharge but don’t expect to upend their very efficient and scientific way of making drinks for free. At that point you are messing with their bottom line.

So I definitely see this dilemma from both perspectives. But since I am a customer and not a barista, you probably know which side I am on.

This drink simply has too much ice.

I could get technical and say if a drink is advertised at a specific price, the price per ounce value should be honored. Take my 20 oz. drink for $7.49 example. That equates to about 37 cents per ounce. A customer should theoretically be able to object if the true cost per ounce is actually 64 cents because half the cup (or more) is filled with ice.

But I prefer to just use a blunter point of reason: the quantity of ice added to drinks at coffee houses is starting to get out of control (don’t get my wife started). In my example above, cups filled with 50% ice is actually being generous. More often than not, they are packed with an even greater percentage of ice depending on which stand you visit.

My belief is that these businesses should just be upfront with how much ice they are giving you and how many fluid ounces of product you are actually being served. That would then provide the customer with a better frame of reference on whether the drink purchase is actually worth it in the first place, let alone if they dare pay extra for “light ice.”

Or perhaps coffee stands should just put less ice into drinks to begin with.

I love the coffee stand right by our house…the baristas are awesome and the drinks taste good. However, the ice issue is making me feel a bit cold. Don’t Blink.