Is this is a fairly open family space or somewhere you won't be wanting to watch TV/spend quiet time, etc?

From our experience with these smaller fridges, the lower cost ones are MUCH more noisy than the high end. Enough so that it is distracting.

Sophie was posting at the same time, and I agree with her assessment - start in the $12-1500 range for something of decent quality.

We bought a Silhouette Napa Danby 24 inch refrigerator for about $500. We were looking for something with zero clearance double doors that has a dual zone for beer or white wine. It is to be installed in the next few weeks. There are better quality products out there but this was in our budget. I think they sell for $900 but we got a great deal and it is under warranty. We are hoping this will be exactly what we were looking for. A simple beer and wine refrigerator. I think Frigidaire makes one too. We will have to see how it goes. ~boxer

I just ordered this one from Sub-Zero - I liked that it has an ice maker. It’s going in my butlers pantry.

24" UNDERCOUNTER REFRIGERATOR - PANEL READY - UC-24R

I know it’s double your budget but worth a look.

Not a huge fan of summit but closer to your budget.

https://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/FF63BBI.html

I bought a Viking...glass doors, alarm sounds when door left open, temp. setting, key lock, it’s very quiet. It’s used everyday. No issues in 7+ years. It was pricey but saved $$ by buying the floor model.

Thanks for the input. It sounds like you need to pay more than what I was hoping. The ones I had been looking at are the following:

http://www.silhouetteappliances.com/us/products/dar055d1bsspr-us/

http://avallon.com/abr241sg/

The cheap ones sound like those mini fridges in hotels.iveunplugged many to get sleep.... don’t bring that home. I bought a Sub Zero. No regrets.

We bought a 15" ULine beverage fridge around 7 years ago. Has worked well. We paid around $1,300 back then.

I bought a Magic Chef in Home Depot for $199.00. I stuck it in my pantry. Its great! Put my husbands beer, our sodas, canned drinks and other things. Its about 3 1/2 ft tall and narrow so it fits next to my pantry shelves. Its stainless and cute looking doesn't look like a dorm fridge.

Is there a way to redesign your space to avoid using an under counter refrigerator? Under counter beverage refrigerators are on my list of lessons learned from my remodel. They’re very expensive relative to a full size refrigerator and, in my experience, require frequent and expensive repairs. My repair guy believes all the brands (mine is a Marvel, retailed for about $2500) stink equally and doesn’t think another brand will make a difference. Next house will have no undercounted fridges or ice machines! Both have been more trouble than they’re worth.

Perlick and True make undercounter refrigerators for bars. Look sometime and you will see them nearly everywhere. They both make residential units. Perlicks are built like tanks. They are not cheap. I love mine. One problem, quickly repaired under warranty. True (the brand), I don’t have but believe they are similar. Marvels aren’t as good. Subzero I bet are. Uline, Summit, and below are solidly meh and very likely not worth the hassle.

I have a snack center with an undercounter microwave and Sub Zero fridge. It is specifically designed and positioned to keep the male members out of my kitchen and away from my expensive appliances. It didn’t work until I turned off the steam oven at the breaker. The microwave has a lockout. Wish all the appliances had a lockout.

Did you put beer in it? Pretty easy way to keep males (of nearly all ages) confined to a specific area.

Then again I defeated this method by sprinkling beer fridges liberally around my house.

Sadly, these males are 18 and 28 months - the fridge is stocked with juice boxes, cheese sticks and popsicles. My husband has some beer in the big fridge, but he can be trusted, but not with any of the ovens or the stove.... (His only job was to put the pizza in the oven and somehow, the pizza stone got broken and the bottom of the oven was caked with burned pizza parts- I honestly don’t know what happened, but he’s banned).

Just curious - what do folks think would work better in a kitchen:

24 inch Subzero undercounter beverage center (with glass door)

OR

24 inch Subzero undercounter fridge (with paneled door)?

It would be tucked away, so the fact that glass/see through would be fine. The bigger issue is storage - the fridge with the door storage seems to be more practical. But the beverage center with glass door is a bit cooler. It would be for kids drinks and snacks and spillover from main 48 inch built-in Subzero fridge/freezer. For the kids drinks, they don't just have small juice drinks but larger drinks too.

What would you get and why? Thanks!

I would urge you to look for one with slide out shelves. I for one would not want to have to bend down and search for items in the back of the fridge. Or look at drawers.

Otherwise, unless storing wine or similar sized bottles is important, the fridge.

Just commenting on rainyseasons repair comment. We've had our ULine under counter beverage fridge for 7 years now and not a single problem with it. I haven't heard many GW/Houzz members complain about their units over the years either.

My sub zero undercounter has a slide out wine shellfish, small item door storage and a small freezer compartment. It’s fine for the kids snacks. I don’t store wine in it though.

For us we have this awkward spot between the upstairs and downstairs. We installed an upper cabinet with glass doors and planned to install the beverage cooler below it. There will be a small counter as well.

I'm using a Magic Chef 24" Built-in Beverage Center (link below). It's only $399 where I'm at and will hopefully get quite a few years out of it. I know I won't get decades of use out of it, but for the price it's pretty easy to replace and not lose much sleep at night.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Magic-Chef-Beverage-23-4-in-154-12-oz-Can-Cooler-Stainless-Steel-HMBC58ST/300509606