Do You Have Enough Table Service?

Knowing how much restaurant glassware, bar glassware, china dinnerware and restaurant flatware to have on hand can be challenging. Fortunately Libbey Inc. has created a series of table service guides to help you estimate your needs.

Check out the links below to make sure you have enough table service for your restaurant or bar:

Libbey’s Bar Glassware Guide – http://www.libbey.com/content/view/101/181/

Libbey’s Restaurant Glassware Guide - http://www.libbey.com/content/view/102/182/

Libbey’s China Dinnerware Guide - http://www.libbey.com/content/view/103/184/

Libbey’s Flatware Guide - http://www.libbey.com/content/view/104/185/

Proper Handling of Restaurant Dinnerware

The dinnerware in your restaurant, like any restaurant equipment item, requires proper care and maintenance in order to fully maximize the return on your investment. Commercial china dinnerware is constantly put to the test under demanding conditions such as bussing, scraping, racking, warewashing and storage. Below are some tips on how to combat the three most common problems with restaurant dinnerware – breakage or chipping; scratches, metal marking and excessive glaze wear; and stains or discoloration.

Breakage and chipping are the result of mechanical shock caused by improper use. Overloading of bus boxes and dish racks, as well as piling heavy items on lighter items, stacking china dinnerware too high, nesting cups, and using other china or metal utensils to scrape dishes can all cause strain on restaurant dinnerware.

Scratches and metal marking on your china dinnerware can result from many of the same causes as breakage and chipping. Scratches and excessive glaze wear can also occur by scouring china with metal pads, steel wool or abrasive cleansers; stacking hot, wet china; infrequent cleaning of stainless steel dish table; and overworking china because of inadequate inventory.

Unattractive stains and discolorations to restaurant dinnerware can be caused by inattention to cleaning procedures such as allowing china to remain unwashed after use, pre-soaking in water over 160 degrees, improper detergent concentrations, hard water or iron content, lime content in old equipment, and clogged or eroded spray nozzles.

Below are some tips on how to extend the life of your commerical dinnerware:

• Never stack china cups.
• Never carry more restaurant dinnerware than you can safely handle.
• Never stack china dinnerware more than 16 inches high.
• Always store china cups in racks.
• Never overload bus trays with restaurant dinnerware.
• Always make sure you have an adequate supply of china dinnerware for rush periods.
• Never use abrasive pads or other dishes to remove scraps from commercial dinnerware.
• Always remove scraps carefully with a rubber scraper or a pre-rinse sprayer.

Fine china dinnerware leaves a lasting impression on your customers. Serving your patrons on china tableware gives the impression of quality and class—unless your china plates are chipped, your china mugs are cracked and the surfaces of your china serving dishes are worn.  If your china dinnerware sets are in poor condition, you are sending your customers a different message. Here are some common problems and solutions to care for your fine china tableware.

If you notice many rim chips on your china:

• Do not stack china mugs

• Check that china tableware is being dried on proper dish racks

• Line your soak sink

• Watch for overlapped china plates in dishwashing machine

• Be careful about mixing heavyweight and lightweight bodied china in dishroom

• Look for improper bus tub loading

If you notice a lot of surface wear:

• Minimize use of metal sponges

• Never use metal sponges on china. 

• White plastic sponges are made for ceramic dinnerware

• Unload china dinnerware from the dishwashing machine one piece at a time

• A quiet dishroom is evidence of longer dinnerware life

If you notice too much breakage:

• Avoid roughly placing china dishes in soaking tubs

• Always hold item using handle

• Check for improper rack height

• Use compartment racks for storage

• Be sure trays, not hands or arms, are carrying plates to the table

• Avoid thermal shock conditions, such as taking dinnerware from the freezer to oven to a cold surface. 

• Do not heat dinnerware over an open flame

Most importantly, invest in quality china dinnerware and replace as necessary. Your customers will appreciate the high quality experience.  

If you are looking for dinnerware that is inexpensive, durable and has a classy appearance, look no further than Serv-U’s melamine dinnerware selection. Melamine tableware is the premium choice for high-traffic operations. Restaurants, schools, cafeterias and hospitals all benefit from the durability of melamine dinnerware.

Melamine is a natural insulator, but lighter weight than stainless steel or ceramic. Melamine serveware will survive the trip from kitchen to table, while keeping your cuisine hot. In fact, melamine dinnerware can withstand temperatures up to 212°F, making it dishwasher safe—though it cannot be used in the microwave or oven!

Melamine plate sets are available in a wide variety of styles and colors. White melamine dinnerware gives the illusion of china for a lower price tag. Melamine is available in a wide range of colors from bright melamine bowls to pastel melamine mugs, and even popular black melamine plates. If your melamine does chip, rest assured that the color is solid through the entire piece.

Because melamine dinnerware isn’t produced with a petrochemical base as raw material, it is a more affordable option than other plastics, such as SAN and Polycarbonate. Melamine tableware also requires less energy to manufacture than china or glass. It requires less packing material, meaning more melamine dining sets can be shipped per box and delivered to you!

As temperatures climb and hours of daylight begin to stretch later and later, the heat is on for outdoor dining season. Our last outdoor dining blog emphasized the importance of furnishing your outdoor space. Another key to the success of your patio space is a stock of seasonal restaurant supplies and tabletop items.

When doing business outside, keep in mind that sidewalks and patios will be much harder on your glassware than indoor dining areas. Consider investing in durable melamine dinnerware to help prevent breakage. Serv-U carries the Durus line which showcases sunny yellow, coral and ocean blue pieces to give your outdoor dining space a warm vibe.

If you are expanding your serving area, make sure you have a dishroom is equipped to handle clean-up. More customers ordering drinks on your deck means more demand for your dishwasher. Disposables are a great solution to this dilemma! Serv-U offers disposable shot glasses and drinkware to meet your needs. 

To get the most bang for your buck in outdoor dining areas, create a twist on your indoor environment that can appeal to a broader base of customers. The beer drinkers that frequent your restaurant to watch sports in the winter may come back in the summer to enjoy a bucket of beer on the patio. Those customers that order from your extensive wine list while dining inside may be attracted to special pitchers of house sangria in the sunshine.

Seasonal restaurant supplies and special summertime offers are a great way to entice customers to your outdoor dining space. Use your patio to add liveliness and action to an otherwise sedate storefront and reap the rewards of an expanded customer base!

Durability is one of the biggest issues in the food service industry. Whether catering, bartending or serving, the goal is an attractive presentation for your customer that can’t be broken in transport or storage. The solution to your durability dilemma? Stock up on plastic restaurant supplies.

The foodservice industry has made huge advances in plastic serveware—specifically Melamine, SAN and Polycarbonate. All three materials have unique pros and cons, but the most distinct is cost. Both SAN and Polycarbonate have a petrochemical base, Melamine does not. All three varieties are completely dishwasher safe, but won’t stand up to liquid chlorine bleach or abrasive scouring pads. Regular commercial dishwashing detergent or sanitizer easily cleans your plastic restaurant supplies.

The trend towards plastic drinkware is popular in pool, lake and beach settings, but equally appealing for your average bar or nightclub. Plastic is less of a liability than glass. Plastic pitchers, for instance, are just as attractive as their glass counterpart, but more durable. When your customers are pouring from plastic pitchers, you increase your profits by cutting your overhead equipment costs.

When it comes to storage of your plastic restaurant supplies, plastic tumblers can be stacked without worrying about chips or cracks. A rack of plastic plates won’t weigh you down the way that china, ceramic or glass will.

Plastic restaurant supplies aren’t limited to dinner and drinkware. Crocks and larger serving pieces are also available in Polycarbonate and Melamine. Plastic is a natural insulator for cold foods and also has excellent thermal properties. Though no plastic material can withstand an oven, most varieties are safe for the microwave.

When you need something completely unbreakable, cost effective and attractive, plastic restaurant supplies are the perfect option.

If you’re looking to draw crowds to your bar or restaurant, mini foods might just be the ticket these days.  I’ve blogged about them before, but they’ve been very much in the news again lately, and with good reason.  People are looking for value—and at least some small manner of escape.  A wine flight or series of mini desserts, for example, satisfies these desires.  Sliders have also recently become more popular, with several restaurant chains adding them to their menus.  With mini foods like these, you reduce customer guilt over price—and calories.  Call or chat online with your Serv-U sales representative to get ideas for how to plate your mini foods for the best visual impact.

    Besides food waste, an issue that is top-of-mind for many restaurateurs is their labor expense.  Warewashing is one area where many foodservice operators can reduce labor costs with fairly minimal investment.  Adding a glass washer to your bar sink saves labor in several ways.  First, the glasses don’t need to be racked and moved to a dishwasher; eliminating this step also reduces breakage.  Then there’s the benefit of cleaner glasses and fewer returned drinks with dried-on lipstick or food pulp.  That’s because the bar sink glass washer’s brushes scrub off food and lipstick residue more effectively than undercounter glass washers—and at a fraction of the cost of a large warewasher.  Besides saving on labor, glass washers are easy to install, fitting into most bar sinks and requiring no special plumbing or electrical hook-ups.

    In some cases, of course, you need to use a larger upright or undercounter warewasher.  In those instances, you can realize savings simply by upgrading your glass racks.  Carlisle’s Opticlean Newave TM glass racks have all the durability of standard glass racks, but they hold 20% more glassware.  That means fewer loads are necessary, and that saves you money on the labor, detergent, and water/electrical costs of running the dish washer.  The curved design of the Newave TM glass racks also holds the most popular sizes more securely than standard racks, reducing breakage.  To find out if a Newave TM glass rack will fit your glassware, give your Serv-U sales associate a call at 1-800-797-3788.  For standard glass racks, just locate your glassware here on www.servu-online.com by using the search function in the top left corner of the screen.  The matching glass rack will be listed as an accessory at the bottom of your glassware’s product page.  Getting the best glass rack for your drinkware is important to reducing mechanical shock and breakage, so don’t hesitate to call with questions.

    For a relatively small investment in a quality food prep machine, your kitchen can prep food at 3 to 5 times the rate of hand cutting fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and meats.  You’re also assured consistent, professional-looking cuts every time without all the wear and tear on your hands.  While automatic machines are available, manual food prep machines work very well at a fraction of the cost.  Many machines even perform multiple tasks.  A great example of this is the King Kutter TM (REDK-6003 and REDK-6004); for just $113, you get a manual food prep machine that can shred, string, julienne, grate, slice, and chop fruits, vegetables, and cheeses.  And there’s a machine for just about any task.  A quality wedger can be had for under $200, and can be used to wedge potatoes, lemons, limes, oranges, apples, and more.  There are some automatic food prep machines that require a larger up-front investment, but carry significant advantages, such as a potato/vegetable peeler (the UVXK-1000, $1340).  It has a 20-lb capacity, and peels vegetables faster than by hand and with little waste, great for high-volume peeling.  Similarly, for some applications, only a high quality food processor will do.  Though they run between $900-$1500, plus blades, food processors work extremely quickly and effectively on all manner of food product.

    Most diners never see the back-of-the house, but that’s where you can make strategic investments to achieve more consistent plates and better labor efficiency.  Investments in glass washers, glass racks, and food prep machines can all bolster your restaurant’s bottom line.  For more information about the benefits of these items, see our additional links below.

Additional Links:

Bar Maid: Why Glass Washers?

Today I got an email from the National Restaurant Association highlighting late-breaking news in the restaurant industry.   The theme of the email was “Center of the Plate” and one article featured on RIMag’s website discusses the influence of southwestern cuisine on traditional favorites.  As the article states, “The result is a spectrum of full-flavored dishes that continues to evolve in foodservice as diners increasingly seek bolder taste combinations.”

That got me thinking: what flavors bring your customers back again and again?  As you update your menus to reflect your customers’ changing tastes, you might also consider updating your dinnerware.  Melamine dinnerware is extremely durable and comes in a wide variety of colors from bold and bright to neutral and understated.  The Durus line by Carlisle is a good example of colorful dinnerware.

If you prefer the feel of China, you’ll find plenty of color options with Homer Laughlin’s Fiesta line.

There’s a style for every décor, and a shade for every spice.  And don’t feel limited to just the options you see in your Serv-U print catalog; we’ve also got a huge selection of web-only dinnerware and China from Oneida.  Just call your Serv-U sales representative for more plating ideas and share your own ideas here in the “Comments” section!

Maybe it’s just the effect of warmer weather as the summer draws near, but all the restaurant industry news lately seems to revolve around beverage trends (and tomatoes…but really—enough about that).

Here’s an overview of the big beverage trends in the news:

--Creative cocktails made with organic spirits and local/fresh ingredients

--Regular drink offerings that focus on “natural” ingredients and real fruit juices

--Bottled water replaced by tap water

 (photo by  (photo by kspoddar of Flickr Commons)
 

Now for the specifics.  We’ve all seen organic foods, and most people are also familiar with organic beers and wines.  But organic liquor?  An AP article on the topic is a good primer.  Tagging a cocktail with the word “organic” makes a lot of people think that it is healthier and more environmentally/socially responsible than a non-organic drink.  In other words, someone using those things as excuses not to indulge in a cocktail may be won over by an organic treat.  Add to that fresh ingredients (like fruits and herbs), especially those that are locally-sourced, and you’ve just added a lot of value and uniqueness to your bar’s offerings.  Example: who could pass up a “Mango-Ginger-Habanero Daiquiri?”  I’ll tell you one thing; Nacional 27’s intriguing cocktail may be enough to prompt a weekend trip to Chicago!  At Nacional 27, many of the herbs used in their drink recipes are grown on the premises.  And as this NRN article says, “…when bartenders cut herbs directly into a drink, it sends an unmistakable message of freshness.”  (Serv-U can help you with just about every aspect of stocking your bar for the summer season.  Call 800-797-3788 to talk to a friendly sales specialist.  Se habla espanol!)

But the “fresh” trend also goes beyond alcohol.  Many people looking for an alternative to an alcoholic drink are no longer satisfied with the usual water and soft drinks.  The word “natural” is popping up on a lot more beverage lists, and according to a QSRMagazine article, about 4 in 10 consumers claim to be more likely to purchase a drink that says “100% fruit juice.” According to the article, “Technomic [foodservice consultants] also found that consumers may be motivated by health considerations to drink more of certain beverages when dining at a foodservice venue.”
 

Which brings us to water, the ultimate “health drink.”  It might seem simple, but water has caused quite a stir lately.  Some restaurants have discontinued bottled water options for myriad reasons.  Many say tap water is just as safe, and a whole lot cheaper than bottled water.  Add to that the waste created by millions of plastic bottles (the majority of which don’t get recycled), and tap water would seem to be the obvious choice, albeit at the expense of some convenience.

Cheers to a thirsty summer!