McDonald's Is Banning Refills In New York State

One of the best things about McDonald’s is that (usually) the service is quick and you can get it at a low price. Now prices have been going up lately across the state, and McDonald’s is adding another hoop that customers will have to jump through.

Ba da da da duuuuum, not lovin’ it.

The fast-food chain is allowing individual restaurants and their owners to decide whether or not to allow free drink refills. The sad thing is: many of these restaurant owners are opting out of free drink refills, banning them from their local McDonald’s.

Just over our state border in Pennsylvania, a man was denied a refill and he actually thought it was a joke. Unfortunately, this could be our reality in New York.

After all, New York is one of the most expensive states to live in, with a cost of living 27% higher than the national average. When it comes to food and groceries, it is up about 10% for New York residents.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the “No Refill” rule affects most, if not all locations.

One reason that this could be happening is because many McDonald’s locations have begun to phase out their “self-serve soft drink stations,” meaning that customers won’t have ease of access to the machines. That makes it a lot easier to prevent a customer from getting a free refill.

What’s really wild to me is that places like McDonald’s make such an immense profit off their soft drinks anyway that it is pretty crazy to suddenly retract their free refill policy. Think about it: if a soft drink sold for $1.99, you are yielding profit margins well over 80%, according to Mirus. Do you really need to charge for refills too?

That’s honestly just greedy.

You can expect all of those self-serve stations to be entirely eliminated by 2032, and you should be prepared to pay for your second cup of pop at McDonald’s.