But there is one thing you won't find at more and more high-end restaurants: bottled water. The movement burst into public view when chef Alice Waters, the godmother of "California cuisine", banned bottled water from her Berkeley, California, restaurant Chez Panisse. Soon after, Mario Batali followed suit at his empire of restaurants, including Manhattan'' swish Del Posto, serving filtered tap water in glasses etched with information about the harmful environmental impact of bottled water.

Then cities (which have the most to gain from promoting municipal water) jumped on board. San Francisco Mayor Newsom issued an executive order to cancel the city's contract for bottled water, ordering instead that city departments rely on tap. The next day, amidst heavy lobbying from the bottled water industry, Newsom along with progressive Salt Lake City Mayor Anderson, and Minneapolis Mayor Rybak pushed through a resolution to commission a study looking at the impact of discarded bottled water bottles on city waste streams. It's only a matter of time when mineral water sales start their decline. Major beverage companies see the writing on the wall: they're aggressively adding brands of flavored water, ice tea and other variations of bottled refreshments.