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Beer Trough Picnic Table, Yea or Nay?
I think I can agree with all your "nay" points yet argue that this project is long on the novelty and presentation factor - for instance, maybe for a casual beach side restaurant where table service clears the empty plates, conserving table space, and where you don't want to have people bringing their own coolers. If you really want, you can cover the hole with a long board. Or alternately have square buckets that fit for your chips and dips and there you go there. Hey, put plants like basil in the middle, and make it really "farm to table."
I agree. My wife and I don't drink and so the design is somewhat lost on us, but I think the space would be better utilized to hold condiment bottles, finger foods, etc. And having a removable board as cover makes a lot of sense.
Can you imagine the water dripping on the table and on the food? When you pull a bottle out the cooler it allows for the ice-water to drip off the bottle befor you get to the table, i suppose you could add two rubber skirts on the sides, both for insulation and to act as a sort of squeegy when you pull the bottle up, but it would be ugly.
It's great to read all of these comments! Articulate, critical-without-being-dickish, practical thinking FTW.
I think it is a good example of selling an experience rather than a product - its selling the experience of sitting in the sunshine drinking cold beers with your buddies - which is great.
Whilst most will already have all the individual components to drink cold beers in the sun, this is offering a full all in one package - the end goal. Once users are sold on the experience the nuances of the practicalities of the product often go out the window.
I think it has more utility for wine (see photo with dark stained table) where you may want the bottle to stay upright, you may want to view the selection, and you may be doing more sampling. A situation where the wine is the centre of things and the food is quite secondary.
The center of the table while conveniently located is a pain base on all the points in the post. Now, whenever I have been out to gatherings using picnic tables I have found that the end of the table seems to be the dead area. A much more worthy spot for adding a deeper and wider storage spot for the brews with a drain plug and extra ice capacity. Yet still within arms reach of the person at the end who can pass the cold ones along.
You could easily slant the trough more so on the outmost edge, add a drain plug for easy draining.