Gasoline is not the only liquid for which the price is higher than the nose of a mountain-climber's mule.
   The amount you pay for soft drinks in many restaurants, and especially at chain restaurants, has also been reaching for the sky.
   The needle on our outrage meter started to flicker a year or so ago when we encountered a $1.89 glass of iced tea at Macaroni Grill.
   In the past couple of months, restaurant reviewers for this paper have inveighed in print against a $2.15 glass of raspberry iced tea at the otherwise praiseworthy new Mimis Cafe in west Little Rock and a horrific $2.39 for a soft drink at the new Hooters in North Little Rock.
   All that for a glass of fountain/ machine-generated soda pop or mass-brewed iced tea that, according to restaurant industry experts we consulted, costs only a few pennies to produce.
   Sure, there are a few mitigating factors. For example, Arkansas exacts a soft-drink tax that kicks the price of fountain soda up a couple of cents. (The tax does not, however, apply to coffee or tea.) And most establishments in this part of the country offer free unlimited refills. Some of them offer the beverages in huge drinking vessels, as well.
   But you would have to practically drink the weight of a goodsize beagle in iced tea, even fancy flavored iced tea, to consume $2 worth. (Assume that a glass of iced tea costs 5 cents to make. You would have to drink 40 20-ounce glasses, or 800 ounces -- that's 6.25 gallons -- to get what you've paid for.)
   Another disturbing trend: Many restaurants no longer list the price of soft drinks on their menus. (The one Chili's faxed to us, for example.)
   Soft drinks are a high-margin, high-profit item. And as food costs increase -- helped, in part, by the high price of gasoline (ask any food service distributor or restaurateur) -- many restaurants that can't easily raise their entree prices can recoup their costs by kicking up the price of a Coke.
   Not every restaurant is gouging its customers on the price of a Pepsi, of course. Chain restaurants, more concerned with generating profits than small momand-pop places, are more likely to charge more. And it shouldn't come as a surprise that high-end restaurants that charge $20 an entree are more likely to charge at or near $2 for a soft drink than a place that sells $2 hamburgers or $5 barbecue sandwiches.
   We dug into our pile of recently obtained menus (either from the restaurant or online), and winkled out these drink prices, which were current at the time but are subject to change. Where you see only one price, it's the same for sodas and iced tea.
   So Restaurant Bar in Hillcrest, $2. (So's entree prices range from $19 to $42, not counting the $125 fresh seafood platter.) EJ's Eats & Drinks, downtown Little Rock, $1.45 The Cross-Eyed Pig in west Little Rock, $1.75 Cheers in the Heights, $1.30 Ricky's Pit Bar-B-Que in North Little Rock, just outside Maumelle, $1.50 soda, $1.30 iced tea The Italian Couple in central Little Rock, $1.74 Bubba & Garcia's in the Riverdale section of Little Rock, $1.50 Downtown Deli in downtown Little Rock, $1.25 The Flying Fish in the River Market District, $1.59 ($1.99 lemonade ) Cornerstone Pub & Grill on Main Street in downtown North Little Rock, $1.50 Reno's Argenta Cafe, next door to Cornerstone, also $1.50 Pizza Cafe in Riverdale, $1.50 Flying Burrito Company in Fayetteville, opening a branch in Little Rock's River Market District, $1.49 Mr. Mason's Pit Bar-B-Q in downtown Little Rock, $1.35 7th Street Cafe in downtown Little Rock, $1.25 Pizza Chef in west Little Rock, $1.25 Pasta Jack's, three central Arkansas locations, $1.60. Dish is a monthly look at the business end of the central Arkansas restaurant business. Send ideas, notices of new restaurant openings, closings, menu and staff changes to Restaurants, Weekend Section, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203; call (501) 399-3667 ; or send email to:
   

eharrison@arkansasonline.com

This story was published Friday, June 02, 2006