Sinking drinksSinking drinks

Fern Glazer

Once upon a time customers sat down to a meal at a restaurant and automatically ordered a drink to wash it down. All operators had to do was offer a few tasty beverages and then sit back and watch as the check average effortlessly increased. 


But times have changed. 


More recently, consumers have been ordering fewer beverages, making free-flowing liquid profits a lot harder to come by.


Today’s customers are less likely to include a beverage with their restaurant meal/snack than they were in years past. Over the last five years, servings of beverages — excluding tap water — have declined 5 percent, according to new data from Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm The NPD Group. With total industry traffic down just 1 ...