Yes, for drinks a cooler and ice + water is the way to go! Space is at a premium for us and as the only beer drinker I settle for cycling cans through the fridge.
Usually the making warm things cold part happens on the long drive between places where power and opening is not an issue. Looking back on the beach trip I wish I'd brought some insulated containers (hydro flask or the like) because that would've helped a lot with the frequent opening. We have them now
Yes, it was running 80+% of the time, based on the WH records from the Victron charger. I had it set to 34F. We had very cold water, and I never felt the food was at risk. We had three 1l nalgene bottles that we rotated - one drinking, two cooling. The fridge met high expectations. It was the solar + battery that was edge case.
The big discovery for me was how far reality was from the math. For example the ARB draws about 4 amps nominally, and that was what I had in mind when sizing things. But that is at full voltage. At 12v it's closer to 5-6 amps, and below 11.5 you can be looking at 7+. This means that getting the battery low is not just bad, but bad^2. This is why so many AH for the battery. The voltage drop as the battery drains can be a killer.
I'm not concerned about abusing my cheap deep cell that I got to use with the fridge, so I'll give the 200w a try for a while and then decide what to do next.
Yea, if you've got kids going for drinks in the fridge that'll kill stuff fast. We only do food in the fridge. I keep a Yeti 50 with a good slurry going for drinks. Beer tastes better out of an ice slurry anyway.