[lotsofpulp]

Some portion of alcohol prices are a barrier to entry to create the desired crowd. You might not want to attract the type of person looking to get shitfaced for cheap. Usually, non alcoholic non tap water is not way cheaper, especially if it is a “mocktail”.

Of course, some portion is also high rents. And I have never seen a restaurant or bar outside of Costco with free refills for anything other than tap water though.

[vel0city]

Lots of places around me have free refills on fountain soft drinks and tea. In fact, it is pretty rare for a restaurant to not have free refills on things like sodas. Something fancier like a craft lemonade or whatever wouldn't have free refills though.

This is true for a lot of the places I travel to within the US as well.

[lotsofpulp]

Interesting. I’m most familiar with west coast and northeast, and can’t say I have ever seen that.

[vel0city]

I've been to Patchogue, Montreal, Toronto, Cleavland, Myrtle Beach, Rehoboth, Baltimore, Louisville, Indianapolis, Nashville, Kansas City, Houston, Austin, Taos, Denver, Chicago, and a few other cities in the past couple of years. The majority of restaurants I visited had free refills for fountain drinks. The biggest places that I went to that didn't have free refills were places like food stands and what not, but that's expected.

[watwut]

But if you have to pay an expensive entry into that space, you will naturally limit who will go there and how often. And I do not just means "excludes people who get shitfaced". I mean "excludes people who are conscious about spending money or simply do not have super high salaries".

[lotsofpulp]

Yes, that is also sometimes an intended barrier to entry.