# Why do restaurants make you reuse your flatware from one part of th meal to the next? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 1, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958 "2005-11-01T20:02:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/21 "2005-11-02T01:29:21Z")
Oh for the love of God. With SIX BILLION human beings on the planet, and rising standards of living in China, Europe, Japan, India, and the US, and water resources strained dangerously, and phosphate pollution from detergents a major issue, you want to double the amount of silverware washed at restaurants because it makes you feel pampered? _I_ don’t want to see our resources used that way. We’re going to have to cut back on a lot of things; why look for new ways to conspicuously consume? Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/22 "2005-11-02T01:55:33Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > With SIX BILLION human beings on the planet, and rising standards of living in China, Europe, Japan, India, and the US, and water resources strained dangerously, and phosphate pollution from detergents a major issue, you want to double the amount of silverware washed at restaurants because it makes you feel pampered? You laud them for their increase, and then decry what’s obviously a very disturbing _decrease_ in our quality of life? For shame! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/23 "2005-11-02T02:01:15Z")
I agree with the OP. I was raised that reusing silverware from appetizer to salad to main course was something you’d find in a greasy spoon diner, not in a midline $25/person (today’s prices) restuarant. I’m mildly pissed off every time the server (can’t call them waiters since they most don’t have much waiterly skill) tries to leave my used salad fork behind. My direct (speculative) answer to the OP, as shown by many posters here, is that that small bit of style has simply been forgotten in the last 25 years, along with so much else of customer service in so many industries. When most of the public and most of the managers (and especially the young waitstaff) have no idea that fresh flatware is the “right” way to do it, the practice will die out quickly. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/24 "2005-11-02T02:09:22Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > I think if you want the ultra-snobby, Emily Post-level fine dining experience, you have to go way higher than your middlin’ priced restaurant. That’s essentially a Chilis or an Outback Steak house. The staff will be pleased to replace your utensils if you want, but obsequious and excessive customer service isn’t their selling point. “Obsequious and excessive”?! Sheez, I’m talking about the waitstaff _not going out of their way_ to take your fork off the appetizer plate and having to find a safe place to rest it on the table. Really, I’ve been watching this lately, and ISTM that the waitstaff works harder at dealing with the mechanics of keeping you and your original fork united than they would with just taking it away, if it’s on the plate, and bringing you a new one. What’s weird is, sometimes there _is_ no safe place, and they wind up setting the dirty fork directly on the tablecloth, or if there is no tablecloth, on top of your clean knife in order to keep it off the table, which of course was wiped off with a wet rag in between customers, but is less than sanitary. It certainly lacks ostentatiousness, but… > [@](#): > > From a practical standpoint, different utensils for different courses is pretty much passe in middle class America. Not only do most people not expect it, most of us don’t even know that it used to be a custom. Certainly at home it is, but that’s because _there is no remove_; one generally eats one’s entire meal off of the same plate. > [@](#): > > So…most people don’t expect it, it allows restaurants to serve more people with less staff (because they don’t have to be running around with forks all the time), and there’s no pragmatic reason why they should do it. You’re right, I’m sure, that most people don’t expect it. I can hardly see that it adds significantly to the workload; we’re talking about bringing a few forks and a knife or two along when they bring out the entrees. It’s like suggesting that they’ll need to hire more help if I order a second drink with dinner. But the pragmatic reason is that _there isn’t always a bread plate_; in fact, there often isn’t. So the used fork has to sit…somewhere, and not always a very satisfactory somewhere, in between courses, before being used again. I don’t do this at home, because my fork always has a safe place for me to put it down - my plate, which stays there the whole time. But there I am in a restaurant, with a fork that may have had, say, guacamole on it, and now it’s on the bare table, or on the tablecloth, or somewhere else where other stuff can get stuck to the guacamole. Or I’ve managed to preserve it from that situation by thinking ahead and setting it down atop my unused knife once I’m done with my appetizer. Seems that’s pragmatic reason enough. But what do I know? I’m just the customer. ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/25 "2005-11-02T02:11:47Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > The placesettings start with a fork, knife, and spoon, and if you use any of them for your appetizer, the server will set the used implements aside while removing the appetizer plates. Really? They actually _remove_ them? In my experience, I have to remember to set aside the flatware myself, or else the server will bus them away and NOT bring back a new set, until I bug them about it. (Or grab a place setting from another table, which is usually the case.) You should consider yourself lucky that the waitstaff is considerate enough to leave you with a fork and spoon to your name. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/26 "2005-11-02T02:35:53Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Quite honestly, I’d feel that it was reducing my enjoyable experience by having them remove my flatware between courses. I don’t want them to take away my fork and knife, unless it’s designed for just that course. It would seem an unneeded inconvience and one more service interruption. I’m curious what you mean by “interruption.” What’s the inconvenience to you if the waiter/waitress took away your used flatware along with your used plate? When the next course comes, you’d just pick up the next set of flatware from the table. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/27 "2005-11-02T02:39:51Z")
When I worked as a waiter, I remember flatware being a bit of a PITA. Washing it was not a problem, but as others have pointed out, drying it, sorting it, checking it (nested spoons and forks often don’t get clean), and–the bane of servers everywhere–rolling it in napkins all take considerable time, space, and labor. Also, flatware, like socks in the dryer, disappears at a surprising rate in a resturaunt. We reordered it constantly and were often short, even soon after restocking. Some of it gets dumped in the trash by mistake while servers and bussers are emptying used plates; some of it gets dropped and kicked behind the bench of a booth; the rest of it–who knows? Maybe customers or servers take it home with them. ( 😕 ) Maybe the dishwasher contains a small wormhole leading to a small, slightly magnetic pocket universe slowly filling with lost resturaunt silverware. Either way, I know our manager frequently complained about the very high cost of keeping the place in spoons and forks. Finally, customers who wanted new silverware were a minor PITA themselves. (I know, I know–I’ve dropped more than my share of forks as a customer.) Getting new silverware meant going to a different part of the kitchen from where I went for food, meaning it took me away from my other serving duties more than most requests. Often all the clean flatware was already rolled into napkins and had to be unrolled just to get a spare fork. Finally, I never discovered a method of carying a single fork or knife that is at once quick, safe, dignified, and sanitary. (I usually grabbed an extra napkin (cloth) in which to hold it, but this seemed to work out as a slight compronise of all four factors.) ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/28 "2005-11-02T02:54:47Z")
Mind you (now that I think about it) I always did bring extra silverware _before_ the appetizer, if one was ordered (unless it was chips and dip or such). Also with dessert. So I guess it wasn’t such a hassle after all. Hey, the OP’s right! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/29 "2005-11-02T03:37:56Z")
[QUOTE=Angua] Sorry, **Angua** , I didn’t mean to imply that Indians somehow unable to grasp the idea of silverware. I was simply pointing out that the dishes served in a typical Indian restaurant in America are traditionally eaten without silverware (and probably 75% of restaurants I went to in India did not automatically present me with silverware), and so it’s kind of absurd to expect them to present you with a full Continental place setting. It’s like chopsticks at Thai restaurants- most Thai food is eaten without chopsticks- but they always give them to us because we expect them. They certainly don’t go to the back room after the night is over and eat their green curry with a pair of chopsticks. So why would we ever expect them to go nuts being proper about it? We don’t and likewise we shouldn’t expect anything but an upscale Continental restaurant to use an upscale continental place setting. Anyway, if you want this kind of service, you have to pay for it. It’s not like waiters are some vindictive beasts looking to remain as unskilled as possible. Some waiters wait at the Outback and probably spend their spare time looking some other better job because they Outback their 15% of your cheap steak amounts to crap. Some people wait at Chez Panisse and work hard to get and keep these positions because their 15% adds up to a small nightly fortune. If you get a hairchut at Supercuts, your going to get a Supercuts haircut and you’re a fool to expect anything different and a jerk if you expect the worker to give you anything more than you paid for. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/30 "2005-11-02T05:03:20Z")
Very interesting. I am surprised, as in the city I live in, even the burger joints and beer halls would give you another fork with your salad or dessert. And I don’t think this city is in anyway unique. I worked in service hereabouts for over 15yrs in many different restaurants, from beer halls to snooty bistros and uber snooty caterers and can assure you I’ve never seen what you describe. Though I wouldn’t be surprised were it so at say, a truck stop. Maybe it’s a regional thing. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/31 "2005-11-02T05:35:27Z")
Hmmm. In my half-century living in the U.S., I’ve seen better grade restaurants that set the table with multiple utensils, e.g. salad fork, dinner fork, and dessert fork. I’ve seen specialty utensils brought with certain dishes, e.g. soup spoon or oyster fork. I have **never** seen, and before this thread never even **heard of** , a **change** of untensils between courses. I would agree with others who suggest that restaurant owners won’t have a ready answer for you, because it’s not something they pondered and made a conscious decision about. Rather, it’s something they never considered because it never came up. By the way, I don’t get this: “_Certainly at home it is, but that’s because there is no remove; one generally eats one’s entire meal off of the same plate._” What I see at home (mine and others) is a salad bowl or plate, a dinner plate, and a dessert bowl or plate. You put your entree in the leftover salad dressing, then your ice cream or chocolate cake in the leftover stroganoff sauce? I’d have to go with the regional differences explanation. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/32 "2005-11-02T06:23:08Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Oh for the love of God. > > With SIX BILLION human beings on the planet, and rising standards of living in China, Europe, Japan, India, and the US, and water resources strained dangerously, and phosphate pollution from detergents a major issue, you want to double the amount of silverware washed at restaurants because it makes you feel pampered? > > _I_ don’t want to see our resources used that way. > > We’re going to have to cut back on a lot of things; why look for new ways to conspicuously consume? > > Sailboat What the boat said. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/33 "2005-11-02T06:51:11Z")
The restaurant I worked at offered chilled forks with the salad course in addition to a placesetting of both a salad and dinner fork. We were quite unusual in that way. Eventually the chilled fork offering became redundant and people often turned them down so we discontinued the practice. It also consumed an extra several seconds of time to procure and count out forks from the freezer and present them in a clean folded napkin each and every time. Trivial it would seem, but those seconds add up over a night and can mean the difference between time better spent in other areas of meaningful service on a really slammin’ night. If anyone requested new silver we were happy to oblige. It just seemed to be overkill from a practical POV. Also, we constantly had a chronic shortage of forks specifically, but all types of silverware in general on extremely busy nights. You see, we shared silverware with a large banquet facility and would often fight over and horde silverware. It really did cause a lot of problems in a petty way between employees…quite ridiculous, but the management couldn’t see the point in purchasing more silverware when the numbers didn’t justify the intermittant shortages. Often people would have to wait an extra ten minutes or so on their table because we would have to wait for cover to go through the dishwasher. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/34 "2005-11-02T08:27:12Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Sorry, **Angua** , I didn’t mean to imply that Indians somehow unable to grasp the idea of silverware. I was simply pointing out that the dishes served in a typical Indian restaurant in America are traditionally eaten without silverware (and probably 75% of restaurants I went to in India did not automatically present me with silverware), and so it’s kind of absurd to expect them to present you with a full Continental place setting. Not really. Most Indians are probably also culturally aware enough to realise that whilst Indians may eat a formal sit down meal with their hands, Europeans/Americans don’t. Certainly in Indian restaurants over here, you do get cutlery, and the cutlery is changed between each course. I honestly don’t see what’s quite so absurd about getting cutlery with your curry in Europe/America. As another example, most Chinese restaurants will give you a fork (and spoon) as well as chopsticks, since they realise that many Westerners wouldn’t have the first clue as to how to use chopsticks because of cultural differences. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/35 "2005-11-02T09:23:46Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > Also, flatware, like socks in the dryer, disappears at a surprising rate in a resturaunt. We reordered it constantly and were often short, even soon after restocking. Some of it gets dumped in the trash by mistake while servers and bussers are emptying used plates; some of it gets dropped and kicked behind the bench of a booth; the rest of it–who knows? Maybe customers or servers take it home with them. ( 😕 ) Maybe the dishwasher contains a small wormhole leading to a small, slightly magnetic pocket universe slowly filling with lost resturaunt silverware. Either way, I know our manager frequently complained about the very high cost of keeping the place in spoons and forks. I knew several waiters who had complete sets of silver and plates that looked surprisingly similar to the Restaurant’s settings. 😉 I often ended up with forgotten silverware in my apron, only to be discovered at home when I was doing the wash. Usually, I’d take it back but some of it ended up in my drawer. Also silverware wrangling is a PITA, given! We were required to stock silverware from loose bins, shine each individually with a damp cloth, then make [cuffed silverware napkin rolls](http://interiordec.about.com/cs/napkinfolding/l/blnapkfold010.htm) for breakfast settings for the morning shift, plus enough extra stock for our shift and the next shift. Probably the most time consuming job as a waiter. Many extra late nights were spent on just this task alone. ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/36 "2005-11-02T13:35:45Z")
Suspenseful. This thread reads like a novel. Specially interesting is the waiters and employees point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/37 "2005-11-02T16:21:23Z")
> [@Angua](#): > > Not really. Most Indians are probably also culturally aware enough to realise that whilst Indians may eat a formal sit down meal with their hands, Europeans/Americans don’t. Certainly in Indian restaurants over here, you do get cutlery, and the cutlery is changed between each course. I honestly don’t see what’s quite so absurd about getting cutlery with your curry in Europe/America. As another example, most Chinese restaurants will give you a fork (and spoon) as well as chopsticks, since they realise that many Westerners wouldn’t have the first clue as to how to use chopsticks because of cultural differences. Chinese restaurants, AFAIK (in Singapore), do not change chopsticks or spoon with each ‘course’ (Assuming that the dinner has courses, like a wedding banquet. Usually, they just serve everything you have ordered in one go, and then you help yourself). During multiple-course banquets they usually give you a new soup spoon for a soup or dessert dish. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/38 "2005-11-02T16:35:15Z")
I agree with the OP and **LSLGuy**. I don’t think it’s snobby, out-of-date, water-wasting, etc. If I place a USED fork on a USED plate, and someone clears away the plate, it seems obvious to me that the used fork that is on the plate should be cleared away with it. And if more food is brought later (in another course or whatever) and I’m lacking a utensil, a new utensil should be brought. I cringe when the waiter grabs my dirty fork from my dirty plate, and the waiter places the dirty fork on the tabletop. Next time I have to eat with that fork, it’s covered with germs from the waiter (who has been touching everyone else’s dirty utensils) and from the tabletop. ---
**Author:** ![eviladam\_part\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/da6949/32.png) [@eviladam\_part\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eviladam_part_2)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/39 "2005-11-02T17:05:40Z")
i always bring my own silverware, glass and plate(s) to restaurants. i don’t need some mouth-breather’s fecal matter in my food. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958/40 "2005-11-02T17:51:23Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Nobody would ever dream of switching forks between courses in their own home. I would. I could possibly use the same fork between appetizer and main course (but would always provide separate forks if I had guests), but never between main and dessert. I have been horrified when restaurants have taken my mashed potato encrusted fork off my plate and put it on the possibly clean table so I can savor that potato taste again with my slice of cake. There again, I’m English and I’d never come across restaurants expecting you to keep your silverware across courses until I moved to the US. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-restaurants-make-you-reuse-your-flatware-from-one-part-of-th-meal-to-the-next/328958.md?page=3)