She would do whatever it took to get things right, whether that meant lugging cases of drinks around at two in the morning or driving somewhere in bad weather to pick up a permit.
"P: (participant): Sometimes even if we sell 8 9 cases of drinks, we still get a scolding from the owner of the joint… They tell us that we don't have good communication skills, or we have not accompanied our customers well, and therefore to avoid this confrontation we force our customers to drink more and more by accompanying them, and we get drunk.
Menu items and daily specials are scrawled on a chalkboard, and there is a refrigerated case of drinks including house-fermented kombucha and tepache, a fermented pineapple beverage from Mexico.
The hefty budget reflects that perspiring Americans gulp almost a billion cases of sports drinks a year, according to the trade publication Beverage Digest.
He bought up to 100,000 cases of soft drinks a week until 1993, when he was cut off.
The number of cases of soft drinks sold continued to slide last year after its 2005 drop, said Mr. Sicher, who monitors industry sales data.
The company said its volume, measured in cases of soft drinks, grew 7percentt in the quarter, including volume growth from the Cadbury Schweppes brands acquired last year.
It hired college students to work as interns, provided them with cases of its drinks and urged them to pass out samples at bars near their campuses.
Anti-American sentiment during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year did not dent sales, he said; Coke sold 24 million cases of soft drinks in Yugoslavia and he expects to double that in two years.
He and his assistant manager, John Degroff, 40, were unloading 800 cases of food, drinks, batteries, flashlights and other supplies that had sold out almost instantly from the CVS near Columbus Circle.
The oil company pays for the fuel and the crew of Mr. Palmisano's boat and stocks it with steak and fresh vegetables, cases of soft drinks and Gatorade.
