Chez Panisse Bans Bottled Water

[JohnL]

Would it be better if Ms Waters continued to serve bottled water and allowed her customers to make the choice? After all is not the customer always right!!!?

Of course not! The customer is NOT always right. But again that is a different subject (see the 'cancelled reservation' thread in this forum).

IMHO her decision is fine. As for the decision to be left to the customer. Well, that is all fine and good too and is not better or worse than her decision to just not serve the bottled water. Like I said, decades earlier she decided to serve local and organic produce and it was her decision. She did not give the customer the option to order locally produced vs. not.

←

You raise an interesting point.

Ms Water chose locally produced items, I believe, because the main impetus was to serve food that was better tasting and fresher and to support local businesses.

I could be wrong, but I do not believe she made this choice for primarily socio- ecological-political reasons.

I wonder if for argument's sake, the local lettuce was not very good tasting-- would she forsake serving this in favor of say, imported lettuce that was better tasting?

So say the local tap water was ok but not very good maybe a bit of sulphur etc--what then?

Would the earth have to suffer or her customers?

[Carrot Top]

Simply put, bottled water has been "86'd" from the Chez Panisse menu.

Except for cases like this:

Bottled water is simply not purchased or served at Chez Panisse, possibly with one exception. Those who caught the story may have heard the general manager mention one patron who pleaded that a case be purchased and reserved just for his visits. He was assured that someone would run across the street and buy a bottle of water the next time the guy returned for a meal.

Interesting.

[FoodMan]

I wonder if for argument's sake, the local lettuce was not very good tasting-- would she forsake serving this in favor of say, imported lettuce that was better tasting?

So say the local tap water was ok but not very good maybe a bit of sulphur etc--what then?

Would the earth have to suffer or her customers?

No, she woudl simply not serve lettuce .

As for water, I would think in keeping with the whole environmental thing, she either will have buy a complex filtration system or buy water from the closest and better tasting source.

[russ parsons]

how is this different than a chef choosing not to serve Chilean sea bass. i know, this is an outdated comparison, but it is valid. chefs (and other business owners) every day make decisions about how to run their businesses. shouldn't they be encouraged to make decisions they believe are moral?

And sorry Eli, I do think the Puck comparison is apt--the difference is one of degree, not of intent.

of course, customers then have the right to patronize other businesses if they disagree.

personally, i'm happy to see one chef who doesn't fall back on the excuse: we'd love to do that, but the customers wouldn't like it.

Edited March 23, 2007 by russ parsons (log)

[Carrot Top]

personally, i'm happy to see one chef who doesn't fall back on the excuse: we'd love to do that, but the customers wouldn't like it.

←

Oh, I agree. She should do what she believes is right. Particularly where morality comes into play.

My question is, how do I get to be this guy below, if I have a terrible and unyielding urge for bottled water on a visit to Chez Panisse?

Bottled water is simply not purchased or served at Chez Panisse, possibly with one exception. Those who caught the story may have heard the general manager mention one patron who pleaded that a case be purchased and reserved just for his visits. He was assured that someone would run across the street and buy a bottle of water the next time the guy returned for a meal.

[Fat Guy]

It's hard for me to see why anybody would object to a restaurant "banning" bottled water, except in the narrow instance when the particular person prefers bottled water (or believes there to be a preference, which may or may not be reality-based). Other than that, as a general matter, if good local tap water is available or good drinking water can be engineered via filtration, bottled water is:

1. Environmentally destructive, and gratuitously so.

2. A ripoff, being sold for $8 when its retail cost is $1.40 and its real value is 2 cents.

Chez Panisse is both a business and a philosophy. I don't really care much about that philosophy, and disagree with Alice Waters (and Michael Pollan) on many issues. But this is one where I see eye to eye with her. It's not the environmental impact as such that's worrisome -- most food production, even "sustainable" production, has environmental impact -- but, rather, the gratuitous nature of the waste.

Alice Waters is doing exactly what smart businesses should be doing, and I applaud it: she's doing something that's in the best interests of her customers, and she's likely to be rewarded for it financially. All those restaurants that know they're ripping off their customers and gratuitously wasting resources every time they sell a bottle of water, but are too meek to exercise any sort of leadership, should look to her example.

Bottled water is not currently treated like wine. It would be relatively unobjectionable to put some bottles of specialty mineral water on the wine list, for connoisseurs to enjoy. But the basic water being offered for hydration -- Evian sucks, by the way -- should be tap, filtered tap or, if those are truly inadequate, water from other sources. As a consumer, if two restaurants are equally good, I'd be inclined to support the one with an enlightened water program. If enough other people come to feel the same way, it's a good business move.

[JohnL]

how is this different than a chef choosing not to serve Chilean sea bass.

←

not much as long as the chef doesn't run "across the street" for some Chilean sea bass when a customer demands it!

[Anna N]

The customer who was promised "bottled water" by the restaurant may well have come from Walkerton.

I am sure if I had lived in Walkerton instead of Oakville I might well see the situation differently and be appalled at Alice's decision! I suspect such instances of poorly maintained municipal water supplies may well have fuelled the move to bottled water for many people.

[russ parsons]

My question is, how do I get to be this guy below, if I have a terrible and unyielding urge for bottled water on a visit to Chez Panisse? 

←

my guess? eat there 2 or 3 times a week for 5 or 6 years. not that that would be such a bad fate ...

eta: so this is how the '60s ends, huh? with contraband bottled water instead of all of the other things that used to be smuggled into the restaurant.

Edited March 23, 2007 by russ parsons (log)

[Magictofu]

The customer who was promised "bottled water" by the restaurant may well have come from Walkerton.

I am sure if I had lived in Walkerton instead of Oakville I might well see the situation differently and be appalled at Alice's decision!  I suspect such instances of poorly maintained municipal water supplies may well have fuelled the move to bottled water for many people.

←

Which in turn, keeps peoples' interest away from basic water sanitation issues... it is a viscious circle...

[Magictofu]

One does hate to be a fuss-budget but we seem to have forgotten that there are major differences between what some are referring to as "bottled water" and "mineral or spring water". 

←

This is very true... but some municipal waters still often win international water tasting competition.

There is a little city called Amos in the province of Quebec (Canada) with an amazing tap water... I would bet on that water against any of the 100 most important brands of water worldwide.

[moosnsqrl]

Will they charge corkage if a patron brings their own bottle? That should be good for a few more pages of discussion

[Pontormo]

Will they charge corkage if a patron brings their own bottle?  That should be good for a few more pages of discussion

←

Actually, Ms. Jones, I believe the topic has run its course.

[Jmahl]

.

* * *

"Years ago before a friend married him and they moved away from Manhattan, a guy I know had seltzer delivered to his apartment in really cool glass bottles. He said it was common practice back in the day of egg creams at the corner drugstore. I assume this kind of fizzy water was locally produced?"

←

When we lived in the Bronx in the 50's and early 60's the man who lived next door was one of New York's last seltzer men. He would deliver a case of seltzer, 10 bottles for a buck. That is ten cents a bottle. The company that fulled them also bottled a brand of soda called Havana Club. The bottles, both blue and white, were mostly made in Czechoslovakia. They were refilled thousands of times.

Jmahl

[plk]

Chez Panisse makes a practice of serving locally-produced, sustainable foods. It's their whole "thing" and a big part of their appeal. If bottled water doesn't fit within that picture, of course they might choose not to serve it just as they would choose to avoid out-of-season ingredients or overfished types of seafood. Of course, the last time I was there, we ordered a great Belgian beer with dinner, which was surely not made locally.

[JohnL]

How exactly is bottled water "environmentally destructive?"

Bottled waters are different.

The taste differences of these waters while often extremely subtle is different as is the chemical composition of various waters. The differences can be proven.

Europeans have long believed in the taste differences and health qualities of water from springs and spas etc.

There is a restaurant somewhere, I recently read about (maybe LA?--which would figure) that has a "water list" and a "water sommelier."

Recommending specific waters with each dish.

There is a guide to waters of the world--I perused it at Borders yesterday--which notes the taste differences on various waters.

Even some of the waters that are essentially tap water (the companies claim these waters are filtered etc) have some benefits. Having a bottle of water in drink coolers, sitting next to the myriad soft drinks is a good thing. I can't count the times I opted for the healthier choice of a bottle of innocuous water instead of a Coke or Pepsi!

Bottled water of any kind is transportable--I often keep some in the car or buy it while on the road to drink when I get thirsty driving.

Is bottled water a "ripoff?" To some who see no difference in taste or no benefit from having water available as an option to other beverages ok that's their opinion.

One could take any number of consumer products and make a cost benefits case against them. Want a real ripoff? Try athletic shoes or jewelry. And are people still buying into the diamond is forever stuff!

One can also make a case for any number of consumer products being bad for the environment. How about any product that is transported by plane, truck, train, auto etc?

Pollan is really making the case that we make and grow everything we use nearby. A return to the days where we all lived in agrarian societies and got our water from the local well or river or stream and made our own clothes and grew our own vegetables and every family raised their own chickens and the local cobbler made our shoes and.....

Very romantic and very impractical!

[ludja]

...

Pollan is really making the case that we make and grow everything we use nearby. A return to the days where we all lived in agrarian societies and got our water from the local well or river or stream and made our own clothes and grew our own vegetables and every family raised their own chickens and the local cobbler made our shoes and.....

Very romantic and very impractical!

←

Have you had a chance to read Pollan's book yet? I found the information to be quite a bit more challenging and nuanced than you have mentioned several times in this and other threads.

[Fat Guy]

How exactly is bottled water "environmentally destructive?"

I believe the number, just for the US, is 30 million plastic bottles thrown in the trash per day. These bottles are of course made from petroleum, and require energy to produce and transport. It's often stated that more water is wasted producing a bottle of water than goes into the bottle.

The differences can be proven.

In several blind tastings, most people have chosen tap in cities like Chicago, Austin, Baltimore, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, over major bottled brands. Sure, there may be some bottled waters that taste better than tap, but the ones you typically see in a convenience store or mainstream restaurant don't. Indeed, plenty of bottled water -- about half -- is tap water. In addition, bottled water on the whole has never been shown to be safer than tap. In the United States, tap water is better regulated and conforms to higher standards than bottled.

Bottled water of any kind is transportable--I often keep some in the car or buy it while on the road to drink when I get thirsty driving.

Tap water, placed in a reusable bottle, is also transportable. You can even drink it while driving.

One can also make a case for any number of consumer products being bad for the environment.

I'm not sure how that's relevant. Are you saying that, because so many consumer products are environmentally destructive, it never makes sense to discuss the destruction caused by any particular product?

Pollan is really making the case that we make and grow everything we use nearby. A return to the days where we all lived in agrarian societies and got our water from the local well or river or stream and made our own clothes and grew our own vegetables and every family raised their own chickens and the local cobbler made our shoes and.....

Very romantic and very impractical!

There's already water coming out of your tap. No need to return to an agrarian society. Just turn it on.

[larrylee]

JohnL,

If you read any of the messages further upthread (such as message 26 you would see that the bottling and selling of bottled water has such extreme effects as diverting entire sources of water at the detriment of the local population.

There is a further impact regarding the plastic bottles it comes in, which are recyclable but are more likely than not thrown away. One might argue that the bottle situation is no different than for any other drink found in the beverage case in the local deli. However, most people aren't making their own teas, sodas, and juices.

Here's an article from Bloomberg last year that mention's Pepsi's revenue growth at the bottom:

Sales at Coca-Cola have risen an average of 3.4 percent in the past five years as more consumers have shunned soft drinks. PepsiCo's have risen an average of 5 percent as it has become the leader in noncarbonated drinks such as Gatorade, Tropicana and Aquafina water and expanded into snacks Doritos.

If you filter out purchases of imported water, there is a growing population of people who buy a bottled, marked up version of what's coming out of their tap. Now granted, there are people who live in areas with crappy water... but what about everyone else?

The "go back to an agrarian society" argument is a red herring. This is more about making informed decisions and understanding and accepting their ramifications. Heck, I buy bottled water when I'm out on the street and forget to bring some with me. I'm not going to hang myself over it, but I at least try to minimize the times that's necessary.

Edited March 26, 2007 by larrylee (log)

[Fat Guy]

It should be noted that even for the 20 or so percent of plastic bottles that are recycled, recycling of plastic is not particularly efficient. With glass or metal, you just melt the stuff down and make other glass and metal things out of it. Plastic can't be melted and re-formed in this way. Instead, what little of it gets "recycled" gets processed into pellets and the like, and used as industrial material. The recycling process itself also uses a lot of resources -- it may not even be worth doing in the case of plastic.

[phaelon56]

If anything, I'd say that serving bottled water is more pretentious than refusing to serve it. Personally I think the idea of paying for something I can get for free is just absurd, and I've never really seen the purpose of bottled water, aside from foreign countries maybe. The environmental impact on top of that just makes it a stronger argument.

←

I don't disagree with the environmental impact concerns but where does a restaurant draw the line? Should a geographic boundary be set and absolutely no foodstuff or beverage ever be used that comes from outside a certain distance?

I'll hazard a guess that Chez Panisse continues to sell and make a hefty profit on European wines. When I go to dinner my dining partner and I typically share one or two large bottles of mineral water as our only beverage. Are we somehow doing more envirnonmental damage than people who drink a bottle or two of French wine?

Sure... one could argue that it's apples to oranges but the fact is that not all tap water is created equal. I'll drink tap water over bottled water in NYC and a few other places where the tap water is very good. But even then - proper filtering is required to allow tap water to taste palatable to some of us. And in some areas - including many parts of California and New Jersey and most if not all of Florida - no amount of filtering short of reverse osmosis can make the tap water taste remotely tolerable.

And - we're talking about plain old flat water here - not carbonated and not mineral water. I don't partake of alcohol but when I'm out for dinner in a good restaurant I prefer having chillled mineral water with my dinner versus tap water.

If Chez Panisse chose to voluntarily donate the profits from all bottled water sales to projects that help provide potable water sources to villages and communities in developing nations - I think it would go much further towards solving a tangible world problem that few pay much attention to. The big multi-national corporation who are cashing on on bottled water sales to people who can ill afford it are certainly not going to step up to the plate to help in that area.

And although I have great respect for what Alice Waters tries to embody on her business model the cynic in me tends to think this is a bit like the Whole Foods live lobster ban - an underlying business motive would appear to be at work just as much as environmental concerns.

[JohnL]

I occasionally enjoy mineral water with a meal (I mostly opt for tap water at restaurants). I also think "water sommeliers" is getting a bit silly but I also do personally notice flavor differences in many bottled waters and certainly do not begrudge or belittle anyone who claims to be a connoisseur of water!

I also see much argument in the convenience of having bottled water available.

Carrying a container and filling it from dubious sources while driving about (I used to use the fountains in Central Park until I witnessed a guy holding his thirsty dog up- to the spigot and watched a person vomit into another one).

There will always be environmental concerns. I guess that recycling is not the panacea it was sold as. Now it seems that it is simply not good enough (was it ever?) so now we need to stop using plastic containers all together. I suspect that the Alice waters/Michael pollan thing is more about the conserving of energy aspect to the environmental issue than the plastic thing (there's always some thing) as the water she served before becoming ethical was most likely from glass bottles.

The solution IMOP, is industry seeking better ways to manufacture plastic containers-- GE and others are hard at work at providing a solution via better and more biodegradable packaging. Until they get there--we can all recycle.

Larry, my point about going back to the agrarian society etc is relevant in that this is the real "ultimate" conclusion to what Pollan presents. He is a thinker and while I do not agree with what he says, I do believe he is serious and presents important points for consideration it is not a red herring, it is the logical end to his thesis.

When restaurateurs other sellers of food decide that going beyond offering the best quality/tasting items at fair prices needs to include ethics and causes then there are problems balancing things,. Witness the contortions that MacKey and Whole Foods are going through. I am not saying that merchants should not be ethical at all--not selling an item that is endangered (swordfish etc) is fine and noble but this whole ethical thing often goes too far.

Ms Waters is fine to serve or not serve whatever she wants, however when she introduces ethics into the equation things often get complicated. I wonder if she is charging for the sparkling water she produces via the machine she bought to turn tap water into sparkling? (just having some fun)

So--I am going to continue to buy water (and other things) in plastic bottles and I will continue to recycle to the best of my ability.

[plk]

The problem with bottled water isn't just with the bottles -- it's also about the pollution created from transporting boutique waters from out of state or out of the country. The same criticism can certainly be applied to wine and beer, and perhaps there are restaurants who only serve local beers and wines for that reason. But the point is, does Alice Waters really have to make completely consistent environmental choices for every single product? No, I don't think an all-or-nothing attitude really helps. If she wants to draw a line in the sand for the water she serves, well, bully for her. She's not giving her dollars to an industry she no longer believes in, but if you see nothing wrong with it, you are free to buy all the bottled water you like on your own time.

[larrylee]

Owen, John:

Some thoughts based on your posts (not to be considered as a thorough response):

1) Where to draw the line? That's just one of the many decisions every business owner is entitled to make. Alice Waters doesn't run an empire of restaurants so I think the "underlying business motive" point is minimal. She just decided to make a stand for something she believes in. I don't think she expects a stampede of people running to Chez Panisse just so that they can have a meal without being offered the option of bottled water. Honestly, it's hard to imagine what sort of positive business effect that declaring foie gras has on any dining establishment. Will more animal rights activists begin dining at French bistros if they ban foie gras? Did Charlie Trotter see a rise is receipts?

*ding*

But of course. It's not a rise in receipts. It's the absence of negative press. It's stated directly in Post 1 of the Wolfgang thread.

The group has dogged Wolfgang Puck Companies for years, protesting its use of foie gras and other animals raised in confinement. The Farm Sanctuary also launched wolfgangpuckcruelty.org - a website that was taken down last summer, and organized a leafleting campaign in front of Puck's restaurants.

There's a difference between making a decision for something you believe in than being coerced into it. Note also that there are probably no small artisanal water producers or age-old culinary traditions being endangered by this action.

2) Donating profits from water bottle sales sends a message, but to me that's even more disingenuous, like those "Dine out for hunger" promotions. One would make an even bigger impact by donating directly to charities highlighted by these events. Anything else is tantamount to buying those colored rubber bands and thinking one has done something truly meaningful.

3)

Altogether, and despite Waters' and Chez Panisses good intentions and acts over many years water seems an odd place to draw a line in the sand.

For the reasons listed above, I think the integrity behind her decision is more sound than that behind Puck's. And water's a bigger issue than most people think. A quick google for the percentage of drinkable water on earth shows that about only 1% of the Earth's water supply is potable. Couple that with a growing population and increasing pollution and we've got a huge problem on our hands.

4) About the red herring comment - What I meant is that despite the end goal of Pollan's book, I think the points are still valid for debate, but your comments seem (to me) dismissive of the idea that bottled water has its drawbacks. You don't have to believe in pulling water from your own backyard well to try and make wiser (for sake of argument) decisions about where you get your water from.

Which takes me back to the Puck issue... but I guess I'll address that back in the Puck thread.

[dividend]

I do buy bottled water, though. Every few months I get a few bottles so I can fill the bottles with water from my Brita pitcher. After reusing the bottles a hundred or so times, they get kind of gross so I buy new ones. I'd happily buy them without the water in them, but that doesn't seem to be an option.

←

This made me laugh. I've been using the same couple of Nalgene bottles for years, and I'm pretty sure I bought them empty.

That's completely not true. Many bottled waters are, for me and many others, a value added proposition. The water I get from my San Pellegrino bottle can't be replicated in my home without expensive equipment. I have a whole house filter (at the tune of over $1000, plus yearly filter costs of about $500), and my water still smells bad and contains e. coli (I have a well). For me to clean it up, add just the right amount of minerals and carbonation, then package for convenience is a non-trivial cost in both time and money. The people who buy bottled water are not all just suckers being led to the slaughter by big corporations selling what they get for free. People find value and quality in what they buy. Just because you get results with your New York city water and Brita filter doesn't mean that others will see the same quality results.

←

In my area, there are a few places to buy purified water in large quantities, for something like 25 cents a gallon. Are those places commonplace? Seems like that and a Nalgene bottle or two would prevent having to buy actual "bottled" water, or to install an expensive filtration system. I fill a huge 4 gallon jug of the stuff sometimes when I go camping, and it tastes just fine. There's a middle ground between drinking and discarding 25 tiny bottles imported from Fiji each day, and drinking tap water even if it kills you.