I do somewhat get the math....with employer taxes and legally required fringes (around 30%), an $11/hr employee costs around $14.30/hr. About $0.24/minute. Assume the employee takes 2 minutes to engage with the customer, get and deliver the refill. So the labor cost for the refill is 48 cents, But remember this was a refill, and the labor cost was 48 cents the first time. Add a bit for the cup, the coffee itself and physical overhead, the math turns negative on a cup of coffee that only cost $1 in the first place. But yeah, I also agree the sign was passive aggressive and mostly just the franchisee trying to incite older customers....the kind that probably come in to read the newspaper in the morning for a few hours while having cheap coffee with free refills....in other words, customers they weren’t making anything off anyways.