I have been enlisted in the marines, gotten recalled, worked as a contractor, finished my undergraduate degree and now looking at my PhD. This post just made me 16 again.
Hey, congratulations.
I hate people complaining that the coke is out. Go drink Pepsi, it’s the same thing. Or better yet drink Diet.
Pepsi zero is perfection
Don’t drop them off the top shelf. They do not mop up.
One time I had one up on the top shelf and “pop” spraying syrup all over me. I swear I smelled like cherry coke for a week.
I forget exactly how, but at my first job I did manage to rip one of these before, covering the entire floor in Pepsi syrup. One of the assistant managers walked in shortly after, looked at the mess on the floor I was attempting to clean up and said “it’s fine, I needed something to do anyways, go back to cash”.
pfft nothing compared to changing the keg on a wooden real ale rig in a British pub.
Hell yeah. I only changed 1/2 kegs, but there was a time I needed to carry a full one by hand. Never again.
Thank you but somehow not even close to the worst task I’ve had.
True, but there is a high corelation between this job task and a whole lotta bullshit.
It’s been over 20 years since I swapped one of these out, and my hands are still sticky. Some things won’t come out with soap… only fire…
I had a bigger problem digging out the syrup I needed from the haphazardly stacked boxes of other syrup
You gotta keep 'em organized!
For a few years, I kept them on a shelf at head height. That was a mistake that I let go on too long.
The place I worked at had a fraction of that space to work with and management just didn’t care. They left it up to the servers to let them know when we were low or out of a particular syrup and it was only me and one other server that bothered to do it.
Been out of the service industry for a while now, but I still have nightmares about being out of Dr. Pepper during a Friday dinner shift.
My situation was abnormal since I was running the procurement for food service at a zoo, so those photos were from my warehouse. It lets me joke about a level of organization basically no restaurant can have.
We’d have to run a BIB across the park when someone forgot to ask for it the night before, so not everything was paradise.
Ahh yes, the best thing to do to open it was put on a glove then vent all frustrations for that day into it.
that’s cooking oil right?
Soda concentrate. Good guess tho. Probably could cook with it.
Why was it always sticky?
Nothing hits quite like freshly changed syrup and a fully charged CO2 tank
charged CO2 tank
I can still hear the sounds of the CO2 firing.
You know? I probably would have forgotten that sound for the rest of my life if I hadn’t read this.
Like when you reload the syrup and need to run the fountain a bunch, or when it’s out and just endlessly goes psh psh psh psh psh psh
Did you all get high?
That’s no2, your lungs would get sooooo mad if you did a hit of straight co2…
I have to assume if you’ve handled one of these you’ll be able to answer – how’d it taste?
Kinda like extra sweet bbq sauce. Same stickiness too.
Also I seem to remember coke weighs like 30lbs, and diet coke weighs about 20lbs. That sugar really adds to it
That’s actually really interesting.
Like suckling from God’s teat
This was my second favorite part of my job at Cracker Barrel after tending the fire in the fireplace.
Fair, but f**k those toasters, right? They should not get that hot.
I never had that problem because I remembered my training and used appropriate safety measures before cleaning the toaster.
Non American here… What am I looking at?
BIB - Bag in a Box
Standard format for soda and juice sryurps around the world. Dispensed via a fountain or a bargun.
Feel free to ask me any thing, installing and maintaining soda equipment is my life.
Just don’t ask me anything about freestyle machines, cause I don’t know jack about those monstrosities.
What’re your thoughts on SodaStream?
You can achieve the same results with any CO2 tank and a few brass fittings
Most CO2 tanks and brass fittings don’t inject money into the Israeli economy - that’s specific to Soda Stream. Also you won’t lose your warranty on a CO2 tank for fizzing things that aren’t water, but you will with Soda Stream. Also, without a real Soda Stream, you won’t be forced to stay in each of a power outlet to run an LED that doesn’t accomplish anything except giving the machine a reason to refuse to run without electricity.
Don’t compromise - if you get a competing countertop fizzing system with a pretty case, it won’t fund a genocidal state, void your warranty for fizzing juice, or require power for no good reason. These are unique Soda Stream advantages.
installing and maintaining soda equipment is my life.
That is the first time that somebody made soda equipment sounds interesting and I am ready to dive into a new rabbithole while I cannot sleep 😆
What are “freestyle machines”?
I expected that response, see the fern video.
My reason for the dislike is it feels more like diagnosing a computer than a soda fountain. I enjoy old analog equipment. However the soda drinker side of me loves using them when they are working well.
Free-style is Coke’s brand of pick-your-flavor touchscreen hell.
you asked the one thing they told you not to…
So I’m thinking of picking up a used system off Facebook, good or bad idea?
Feel free to ask me any thing, installing and maintaining soda equipment is my life.
What was the worst thing you ever saw? I’m guessing if you maintained them you occasionally were called I to fix things when something went wrong. So what went wrong?
How much would it be to install a single flavor fountain in-home? And what would be the most expensive parts?
Soda fountains/soda machines dispense the beverages from a large bag of syrup (maybe the straight beverage itself if they are non-carbonated) that is usually like 3 gallons which mixes with CO2. So the Coca-Cola in the image is hooked up to a tube that funnels the syrup into the machine and mixes with the CO2 to create the beverage you want.
It is mixed with CO2 and lots of water. usually about 5:1, so this BIB makes 30 gallons of soda.
It’s soda syrup. Fast food places buy these and CO2 dispensers to make soda that most Americans drink.
Don’t have to be American afaik. That’s a box of soda/pop sodapop syrup. You open it up, and connect it to the hoses that connect to the fountain. Can lick tho cap before you toss it too, usually a bit of extra syrup in them. :3
I have changed these in Europe, so yeah, not limited to the US.
That’s only because the US is not limited to the US -_-
Aaaah OK, no i KNOW that we have these syrup containers in Europe, but never saw one in my life for real. Always thought those where like giant plastic bottles
Ahh didn’t see the Coca Cola logo at first, I thought it was the ketchup boxes you hook up to the pump at the self service station.
Here’s Heinz Ketchup/mustard keystone bags:
As a bonus, here’s a used bag from a batch that probably should have been recalled due to a packager malfunction:
I assume these other connectors should not be in there?
Nope. They were floating in the ketchup instead of being embedded in the wall of the bag.
