Serving Utensils, Refills and Re-Serving Rules

Hygienic Handling and Storage of Tableware and Glassware

Food service managers must establish rigorous standard operating procedures for handling tableware to protect guests from foodborne illness and physical contamination. Service and bussing staff must be trained to hold flatware exclusively by the handles, preventing fingers from making contact with the surfaces that enter a customer's mouth. When unwrapped clean flatware is offered in a dispensing container, managers should arrange it so employees and guests can take it by the handles without touching eating surfaces; wrapped or otherwise protected flatware need not face a particular direction.

Similar sanitary practices apply directly to serving dishes and beverage containers. Plates and bowls must always be handled by the bottom or outer rim without fingers touching eating surfaces. Glassware and cups must be held securely by the base, stem, or handle, and employees must never grip them by the drinking rim. For example, when a server delivers a coffee cup and a water goblet to a dining table, their hands should remain entirely on the lower parts of the vessels, keeping all customer drinking surfaces completely untouched.

Staff must be trained never to nest clean glasses while carrying them through the dining area. Nesting can easily chip or break the glass, creating a dangerous physical hazard, while also directly contaminating drinking surfaces through contact with the base of other glasses. Managers should train staff to transport clean tableware without contact with uniforms or other sources of contamination, using clean trays, racks, or carts when appropriate. Clean tableware cradled against an apron or uniform picks up dirt, microorganisms, and other contaminants.

Managers must also control the sanitary condition of preset tableware on dining tables. Managers must protect preset tableware from contamination by wrapping, covering, or inverting it; exposed, unused settings must be removed when a guest is seated or, for reusable tableware, cleaned and sanitized before further use. However, preset flatware that remains protected from contamination by clean wrapping or packaging does not need to be cleaned and sanitized again solely because it was preset on the table.