Why don’t hotels have mugs at breakfast

[Cudzoziemiec]

For the very gods, milk. It comes in quart bottles.

The US liquid quart equals 57.75 cubic inches, which is exactly equal to 0.946352946 liters.

Things you didn't need to know that you didn't know.

[HTFB]

On coffee, my son was saying he had "Nescafe Quick" from a machine at work yesterday and he's never having it again. "What kind of pretend coffee is that?" I bet their machine doesn't have sticky-back plastic in imitation wood pattern though.

There is worse. I once accepted a polystyrene cup of Nescafe "3-in-1" squirted out of a fridge-shaped backpack, on NCN1 outside the Cutty Sark.

[Mr Larrington]

Imitation wood is dying out though, there should be a campaign to save it, first it disappeared from the sides for continent-spanning Buick station wagons, now it's slowly disappearing everywhere. I had a toaster oven nicely decked out in the stuff.

Even the continent-spanning station wagon itself – with or without fake wood trim – is a prime candidate for the “Items of yore” thread.  Continent crossing is done in an æroplane, sorry, airplane these days and Grandma and the dog have to stay at home.

[T42]

They do seem to occasionally mount the urns over a sterno. This usually means the coffee was made in the late palaeocene.

I googled sterno:



That explains the coffee at least.

[ian]

It's a brand of jellied denatured alcohol that comes in a can with a wick that you can set alight and put under urns and serving trays to keep stuff warm, beloved of hotel buffets.

[Mrs Pingu]

Oh god I hate the stench that those things give off.

[T42]

Haven't seen them here, but I haven't slept in hotels for 5-6 years now.  The wee candles in serving trays or just electric ones, yes.

[Kim]

It's the stuff you make squeeze from.  This is important if you ever need to lower your blood pH to fend off an alien organism.

[cygnet]

For the very gods, milk. It comes in quart bottles.

The US liquid quart equals 57.75 cubic inches, which is exactly equal to 0.946352946 liters.

Things you didn't need to know that you didn't know.

That sort of accuracy is on a par with the Garmins complained about elsewhere on this site. Not sure that it's down to homeopathic level though.

[Oscar's dad]

Many of the chain hotels (e.g. Travelodge) do have mugs... 

This my experience ^^^

I don't mind a cup and saucer, I have some espresso cups and saucer and we recently bought some larger cups with saucers to enjoy coffee out of our bean to cup machine.

First thing in the morning it has to be a mug of tea, I pretty much refuse to do anything until one has been consumed.

[Basil]

Currently drinking from a good sized mug in our room in a premier inn.

[Moleman76]

self-styled “Seattle's Best Coffee”
Hotel kettles are not A Thing in USAnia

In days of yore, say one-and-a-half score years ago, before the Starbuck's mermaid started combing her hair over her chest, It wasn't quite obvious that there would be 3.5 Starbucks at every street intersection in Seattle.

Stewart Brothers Coffee was a strong competitor, and expanding toward the Atlantic.  Somewhere around Indiana they bumped into another Stewart Brothers Coffee, and the trademark names clashed.  The Seattle Stewarts decided to transform their SBC initials to Seattle's Best (a pointed dig at the Starbuckians).  SBC did well enough that the founders sold out and retired.  By 2003, it passed into ownership of .. Starbucks.  It's flavor, when freshly brewed, is less burned than Starbucks.  But there are many other good coffees here in the land at the upper left corner of the USAnia map.

Hotel Kettles - well, even the cheapest motel I've stayed inhere in my homeland has a little "Mr. Coffee" coffee maker* that heats water for pouring over a packet of brown bean grindings.  Then again, I've not been to Battle Mountain.  *which might, or more likely might not, be washed or cleaned from time to time.

My thought on why the small cups for bad flavored caffeinated drink is ... saves them expenses. 

[Mr Larrington]

Perhaps SBC is better when it has a clientele who can vote with their feet/taste buds/wallets, which you can’t do once you’ve gone through airport security

I have never managed to stay anywhere so mean as to not provide some method of making Brown Drink, but for making tea they suck bigly.  Also the accompanying stock of Brown Drink invariably contains far more decaf than is seemly.

[Moleman76]

I have never managed to stay anywhere so mean as to not provide some method of making Brown Drink, but for making tea they suck bigly.  Also the accompanying stock of Brown Drink invariably contains far more decaf than is seemly.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1747536782070881 has other suggestions for in-room meals.

Perhaps previous guest have absconded with the caffeinated brown drink packages.