You have to have courage if you want to order ordinary tap water in a restaurant or pub in the Czech Republic. In the best case, the staff will comply with your “strange” wish, but they will accompany your order with a meaningful shrug of the shoulders or roll their eyes. In the worse case, they will refer to sanitary regulations, and they will not serve it to you. The supranational water company Voda Veolia is currently trying to change this “tap unwillingness” with a campaign in which it is offering restaurants original glasses and the results of a survey it commissioned, according to which, 86% of Czech guests would like to drink tap water with their coffee.
For more than a year, Václava Kuncová’s website vodavoda.cz has promoted, independently of that company, drinking “ordinary” water. Besides a statement by the sanitary officer on the quality of tap water and its bottled “sisters”, the website also contains a table evaluating restaurants’ attitudes toward serving from the faucet. Vodavoda.cz has evaluated about 100 restaurants and cafés; the marks correspond to the Czech school system. No 1 is given to restaurants that will serve tap waterautomatically or that offer it, while No 5 is given to restaurants that do not serve it at all, often explaining that the owner or sanitary officer forbids doing so.
Out of 100 businesses, about 10% received a No 1, while half of them got No 5. Even this rebelliouswebsite notes, however, that to offer tap water just by itself is not appropriate: “The evaluationis not relevant without a meal, and it is not even suitable to request something like that,” vodavoda.cz says. It is not inappropriate, though, if you are west of the Czech border, best of all in France, where serving tap water for free is even required by law. Tap water must be served on all occasions – that is, with wine, coffee or just by itself.
The obligation ensuing from the relevant law has become part of common culture in France, while in the Czech Republic customers still await the traditional Yes or No. Some restaurant owners are excited about the campaign for free tap water, others disagree with it, and the rest are calculating how much washing glasses will cost them. They are willing to offer tap water for a symbolic price, but not on the drinks menu.
