Originally Posted by IADCAflyer

Let's be honest: I will bet that 90% of club members (be it United or Delta or American) have taken food or drinks out of the club. An apple, a banana, some Carrs water crackers, a cup full of Skittles or Starburst, their latte that they just got from the self-service barista machine. I grabbed a bagel and two little packs of grapes from the AC on Wednesday because I knew that I wasn't going to be offered a lick of food for the six-hour flight to LAX. Call it benign ignorance on the part of the housekeeping staff, the club manager and the front desk agents.

What you're not going to see the clubs do is make it easy peasy to take the items out of the club. You can take out your cup of Skittles, but the lid may come off and you have a trail of Skittles leading from the Club to gate C11. You can find a way to take a coffee cup full of Coke with lime flavoring out of the club, but it's a 10-ounce cup and it comes from a soda dispenser which costs about $0.20 for 10 ounces to dispense. That is Infinitely cheaper than a 20-ounce bottle of Cherry Coke which costs $0.50 a bottle. If you provided bottles, people are going to take bottles. Guaranteed. If you provide it through a dispenser, only a few will take the time to grab a 10-ounce cup to go.