At some point a few years back in Ireland, some entrepreneurial bar owner thought that it would be clever to roll up a fork and a knife in a paper napkin ready to be handed to a customer when they ordered food. No doubt in his mind he thought this was a great time saving idea, because it could be done during quieter parts of the day and it all looked very neat.
Well here’s the thing. A napkin is supposed to be used to wipe your mouth and fingers after eating. Do I really want to be putting a napkin to my face that has been rolled by grubby fingers and in some cases dipped in water so that the tip of the corner stocks to the rest of the napkin so that it doesn’t uncurl?
I certainly don’t. And have you ever seen what this napkin looks like when you have prised the cutlery from it? It looks like those paper fans you used to make as a child and nothing like anything I want to put near my face.
Why not place a simple napkin folded in half on my table? It surely takes the same time if not less?
The rolled cutlery is surely a solution to a problem that never existed.
November 26, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Amen to that!
It’s a remnant of self-centered thinking and is another “cut” in the “bad service is a death by a 1,000 cuts” mentality. We rant on this all the time – even to Health Dept. inspectors – but it falls on deaf ears since “the chains do it”.
It’s time it stopped.
November 26, 2007 at 7:56 pm
[...] Barry Chandler reminded us of one of pet peeves – napkin rolled silverware. Take a read. [...]
January 13, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Our local health dpt will not allow us to preset a table with silverware. Setting a table for four is completely unpractical during the rush. We still have to handle the napkins with our grubby little hands to fold them or fan them.
Long on opinions and short on solutions except raising labor cost.