Jumbo size: Rhodes 101 sets a world record with 15-foot, 4,700 gallon drinking cup

Fountain soda always has been big at Rhodes 101 Convenience Stores, but at Sunday’s summer customer appreciation event, the usual 32-ounce and 44-ounce cups were overshadowed by the gas station’s newest — a 15-foot-tall cup with the company’s new logo.

The giant cup contained more than 4,700 gallons of lemonade, setting a world record Sunday.

Over 1,000 Southeast Missouri residents filled an open lot beside the company’s Mercado Di Rodi store in Cape Girardeau for a Rhodes 101 customer appreciation event featuring free lemonade from the giant cup, free food from Imo’s Pizza and a chance to see the gas station break the Guinness world record for largest cup/glass of soft drink.

It took movers with two trailers almost five hours and to move the empty 3,200-pound cup to the gas station.

The campaign to break the record began with a Rhodes 101 fountain drink promotion from May 26 to July 31, during which time 1 ounce was added to the cup’s final size for each drink that was sold.

Locals fill containers with free lemonade from record setting cup Sunday afternoon at Mercato di Rodi in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

Rhodes 101 aimed to top a record set by Calypso Lemonades on Aug. 20, 2015, with a 3,200-gallon lemonade soft drink.

To legitimately qualify for a Guinness World Record, Rhodes 101 had to meet qualifications.

To prevent wasteful record chasing, Guinness requires in any record involving food or drink, the item must be dispensed and consumed by humans.

Other stipulations include a health inspector must be on site to verify the cup and its contents are safe, and the soft-drink ingredients must remain proportionate to the recipe.

Guinness World Record adjudicator Jimmy Coggins arrived at the site about 7 a.m. Sunday to serve as Rhodes 101’s primary witness in the attempt to break the record.

As Coggins watched the lemonade mix as it poured into the massive cup, Rhodes 101 workers moved boxes of lemonade syrup by the pallet. One hundred fifty-eight five-gallon bags of syrup were mixed into the steel cup, filling it within inches of overflowing.

Once the drink was poured, Coggins began verifying the cup’s size and volume with the help of an expert witness — licensed surveyor and engineer Chris Koehler.

By the day’s end, Rhodes 101 vice president Brent Anderson debuted the new, blue Rhodes logo, and Coggins announced the gas station set a Guinness World Record for largest cup/glass of soft drink with 4,730.9 gallons of lemonade ready to serve.

“Every time I do these, you look around, and you see how it brings people together,” Coggins said. “To me, the record is great, but I’ve also been to events where they don’t get the record. It’s still a big deal because you get people together.”

“We do these things for one reason — it’s to reward our loyal customers and celebrate our employees,” Anderson said. “We are a Rhodes family, we’re not just a Rhodes company.”

bmatthews@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652

Pertinent address: 425 S. Mount Auburn Rd., Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 63703