Something like this has been going on in the restaurant world since seemingly forever. When I worked at a pizza joint (40-some years ago) we only served Pepsi drinks.

I was young and dumb enough then not to know that, for example, 7-Up and Sprite were not independent soft-drinks. I assumed every flavor of soda was its own company. I soon started to notice the drink pattern based on whether they had Coke or Pepsi. Those two owned all the other flavors—and they each had their own variant of the other's.

I was told too by management that we only bought Pepsi drinks. Again, native me thought, "Why not have both Coke and Pepsi and let the customer decide?" I am not sure whether there was a pricing issue that prevented management from buying both—like the loss of a discount for going Coke-only or whatever.

Of course you always saw signage, etc. around the restaurant with Pepsi logos (or Coca-Cola logos at other restaurants) so you knew there were gifts in other forms that one of the two would entice the owner with.

What a slow growing up I have gone through since then. It seems like the kind of thing they ought to teach in primary education.

The deals for this type of product positioning occur quite high up in the chain.

To give an example Yum! brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, etc) was formed as a subsidiary of PepsiCo. Although PepsiCo has divested from Yum, their pre-existing relationship is why these restaurants only serve Pepsi's soft drinks.

Deal-making is also why you see patterns like this emerge in other places such as convenience stores that only sell beverages from the Coca-cola company (i.e. higher volume sales from just one supplier yields a better discount than splitting sales across multiple suppliers). It's relatively rarer to see more than one beverage supplier at a restaurant, club or convenience outlet.

Ha, the University where I work signed an exclusive agreement to only sell Pepsi products on campus. I'm sure there was some kickback money given to people here to push it through.

> Again, native me thought, "Why not have both Coke and Pepsi and let the customer decide?" I am not sure whether there was a pricing issue that prevented management from buying both—like the loss of a discount for going Coke-only or whatever.

There's a bunch of pricing stuff (typically the bottler sells syrup and rents dispensers and may supply drinkware, and you get discounts on everything when you buy more syrup, and you get advertising subsidies when you put the brand logo in your ad, etc), but there's also logistics. More options means a bigger soda fountain and probably more space storing syrup.

I'm not sure I've ever seen mixed brands in a single dispenser (other than 7up+DrPepper which is bottled regionally by Coke bottlers in some regions and Pepsi bottlers in others; so you might see Coke with 7up and DrPepper or with Sprite and MrPibb). But, rarely, I've seen dispensers from both. Mostly at convenience stores and also the Yahoo employee cafeteria at the Sunnyvale HQ on First Ave (which they left some time ago). Some restaurants that don't have a fountain will stock cans from multiple brands, too.

All that said, from my life experience, very few people express a strong preference, giving customers a choice probably isn't worth the effort.

There's a complicated UK beer version of this with more parties. Basically pubs might be any of:

- directly owned and managed by the brewery

- owned by the brewery and leased to a manager, like a franchise

- independent, but contracted exclusively

- genuinely independent

Contracted pubs may also have limited supplies of "guest ales". Usually there's sufficient local competition to keep the pubs good, but local monocultures can also be a problem.

Are you referring to the fact that 7up/Dr pepper are distributed by pepsico? They still have historically been independent from the big 2 as far as product branding since inception, most recently being owned by Schweppes.

And Pizza Hut ran itself into the ground despite being incredibly popular when I was a child

This is world wide. Coke and Pepsi not only provide restaurants with soft drinks, but also all other drinks, most importantly beer. Local beverage distributors will be with either one or the other.

Restaurant owners will sign a contract with a distributor to buy only from them, and in exchange get discounts, free equipment rentals such as drink fridges and beer taps, and things like sunshades, tables and chairs, signage, etc.