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Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/21/7 | Carol Ness

Posted on 03/21/2007 6:16:54 PM PDT by SmithL

At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of -- gasp! -- tap water. It's filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine.

Incanto, in San Francisco's Noe Valley, and Poggio, in Sausalito, pioneered the trend four years ago. But for several years, no other restaurants wanted to give up popular -- and profitable -- bottled water.

Then Nopa, the San Francisco North of Panhandle hot spot, took the plunge when it opened last summer. And so did Ici, the Berkeley ice cream boutique.

And now, Chez Panisse, the godmother of the sustainability movement, is jumping on board, serving East Bay MUD's finest, filtered and bubbly in carafes approved by Alice Waters herself.

"Our whole goal of sustainability means using as little energy as we have to. Shipping bottles of water from Italy doesn't make sense," says Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse. Management hopes to complete the switch from Santa Lucia acqua con gaz to house-made sparkling water this week at both the restaurant and upstairs cafe. Chez Panisse stopped offering bottled still water last summer.

At Nopa, "Our goal is to be local,'' says co-owner Jeff Hanak. "We can't do it with a lot of things, like Scotch, but we try to do it with the things we can."

Water is fundamental, and it used to be that the questions about it, at least in restaurants, were as simple as "still or sparkling?"

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: tap; watersnobs
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Jennifer Skiman serving filtered water to Kristina Campbell at Nopa in San Francisco. The restaurant dropped bottled water for filtered tap last summer.

1 posted on 03/21/2007 6:16:56 PM PDT by SmithL
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To: SmithL

My husband installed an RO system in our home at a fraction of the cost if professionally installed systems....the water is fantastic!!!!

http://www.airwaterice.com/


2 posted on 03/21/2007 6:22:50 PM PDT by Kimmers
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To: SmithL

Interesting tidbit in the article about how a decent amount of bottled water exported to suckers in other countries comes right out of the U.S. municipal water system, leaving just a little less for us.


3 posted on 03/21/2007 6:26:08 PM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten per cent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: SmithL

Uh, its also known as "seltzer." We've been drinking it in the NY area for years.


4 posted on 03/21/2007 6:26:13 PM PDT by Clemenza (NO to Rudy in 2008! New York's Values are NOT America's Values!)
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To: SmithL
Image hosted by Photobucket.com i have village water but ALL my drinking/coffee/cooking water comes from a hillside spring about five miles away... runs all year and never freezes.
5 posted on 03/21/2007 6:29:00 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist ??)
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To: SmithL

The taxpayers have been paying for safe clean water for years. But don't worry the gov't will keep charging us to rip us off any way they can.


6 posted on 03/21/2007 6:59:54 PM PDT by Waco
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To: SmithL; patton

just nutty....


7 posted on 03/21/2007 7:06:14 PM PDT by leda (19yrs ... only 4,981yrs to go ;))
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To: SmithL

On a similar note, my favorite episode of Penn & Tellers BS was when they took over an upscale restaurant and presented customers with a "water list". The waters were form exotic locales like the slopes of Kilimanjaro and Amazon rain forest and came in fancy looking bottles at fancy prices. The customers tasted the waters and commented on how wonderful they were compared to the water they usually drank and noted distinctions... "this one is a little flinty" and "a taste a note of acidity". Imagine their faces when they were told that all the bottles had been filled in the back with municipal water from a garden hose.

Ya had to love it.


8 posted on 03/21/2007 7:15:07 PM PDT by free_for_now (No Dick Dale in the R&R HOF? - for shame!)
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To: SmithL
Now I know what pushed the veggie-arsonist over the edge.

It wasn't the magic mushrooms; these irresponsible restaurateurs polluted his precious bodily fluids!

SF arson suspect arrested at hospital

9 posted on 03/21/2007 7:17:27 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: SmithL
At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of -- gasp! -- tap water. It's filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine.

I guess the market for pure and natural water is gone forever.

There's just not enough money in it anymore...

We now have to pay for pure and natural water instead.

What does the tap fee cost as a portion of the cost of the pure and natural drink?

10 posted on 03/21/2007 7:25:42 PM PDT by EGPWS (Trust in God, question everyone else)
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To: Clemenza

"Uh, its also known as "seltzer." We've been drinking it in the NY area for years."

OK, history lesson for you NY'ers.

A little milk, a couple of teaspoons of U-BET chocolate syrup, put the spoon over the glass and pump in some seltzer, being careful to run it over the spoon, lest your mixture spill over the glass and onto the table, floor, walls.

Stir and serve with a big salty pretzel rod.

What am I?


11 posted on 03/21/2007 8:39:13 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (The Clintons: A Malignant Malfeasance of the Most Morbid)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

An old soda jerk?


12 posted on 03/21/2007 9:06:49 PM PDT by LurkingSince1943 (Former War Criminal)
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To: SmithL

Wow, San Francisco apparently thinks it's in Europe. All the restaurants there do the same thing, and I found it annoying when I was over there. Around here *all* the restaurants serve ordinary tap water, and if they asked "sparkling or still" they would get a really strange look from their customer.


13 posted on 03/21/2007 10:43:47 PM PDT by xjcsa (The "average temperature" of the earth is as meaningful as the "average number" in a phone book.)
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To: Waco
The taxpayers have been paying for safe clean water for years.

It's interesting that here in LA the illegals never drink tap water having learned never to trust it in the backwater villages they came from. They think our water is as bad as the untreated polluted stuff back home.

They buy water from the machines outside the grocery stores. Basically city water that is filtered.

Regards.

14 posted on 03/21/2007 11:48:39 PM PDT by ARE SOLE (Agents Ramos and Campean are in prison at this very moment.)
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To: LurkingSince1943

An Egg Cream!!


15 posted on 03/22/2007 3:32:38 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (The Clintons: A Malignant Malfeasance of the Most Morbid)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Judging from the distinct lack of poultry and dairy products, I'd have to say that's an egg cream, Andy.


16 posted on 03/22/2007 4:13:26 AM PDT by Eepsy (The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Egg Cream. Two best in the world are at Hinsch's in Brooklyn and Eisenberg's near the flatiron building.


17 posted on 03/22/2007 10:29:15 AM PDT by Clemenza (NO to Rudy in 2008! New York's Values are NOT America's Values!)
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To: SmithL
sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants

What the heck does that mean?

18 posted on 03/22/2007 10:31:01 AM PDT by GSWarrior
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To: GSWarrior
sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants
What the heck does that mean?

More politically correct than people like you and me.

19 posted on 03/22/2007 10:46:18 AM PDT by SmithL (si vis pacem, para bellum)
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To: jiggyboy

Disani is ALL local tap water.

Even the foreign brand names are not necessarily from abroad. It may be a mix beause the law allows a degree of mixing and still having the label.

(think Wolfgang Puck frozen exotic pizzas that LITERALLY has a drop of tomato sauce to comply with the legalitis to be defined as a frozen pizza. LITERALLY a DROP.)


20 posted on 03/22/2007 10:52:35 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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