SERVE FROM THE LEFT, CLEAR FROM THE RIGHT
If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant of any kind you have undoubtedly heard of the policy, “serve from the left, clear from the right”. The idea is that you place things in front of a guest from their left side and remove things from their right, using your corresponding hand to do so.
I bring this up because what started long ago as a technique to help servers not step on each other’s dicks has become the modus operandi for intellectually lazy restaurant managers who think this makes things extra fancy when in fact it merely makes them “cruise ship fancy”.
Allow me to squeeze a learn-turd on ya.
ORIGINS
Although it is not known precisely when or where this policy originated, we DO know that it comes from the world of high-society banquet service, and accomplished two goals in that setting: One, in the old-timey days, European fancy lads and their well-powdered ladies would be served using what is called “swarm service” wherein each guest is served each course simultaneously (or alternately, the dome covers over pre-placed “family style” dishes would be removed simultaneously). Each server serves one dish and does so from the agreed-upon left side because if they didn’t they would be bumping into each other and/or the guest.
No doy.
Two, whereas the vast majority of humans who are NOT the spawn of the devil are right-handed, a formal place-setting in this venue has all pre-placed beverage glasses to the right of the guest, so serving them from the left gives the guest unimpeded access to their beverages during plate service (including the 2.4 seconds it takes for a server to set a thing down on a flat, stationary surface, on a planet with 1g of surface gravity).
As time has passed, this policy has found its way into all sorts of culinary and hospitality guides…enormous tomes written by all sorts of genuine dining room professionals (but also some pretentious, self-congratulating peckerheads), and what started as a sort of “Captain Obvious” survival technique became canonized as “formal” and “fancy”…and soon after as “required practice”.
But there are some big problems not just with the current relevance of this policy, but also with the very ORIGINS of the damn thing.
ISSUES
One, you very rarely see swarm surface in the modern dining room, the main reason being that once slavery and indentured servitude became illegal, it’s really hard to find 150 people to serve one dish simultaneously at your cousin Sheila’s wedding reception (Sheila is such a bitch).
I’ve only worked at one restaurant that required this, and it was a NIGHTMARE. Imagine having to find five other people, each equally as busy as you, to help you every time you had to serve a course at your 6-top. FUUUUUUCK that.
Second, that bit about the glassware AND EVERY SINGLE OTHER PRACTICAL ARGUMENT YOU CAN MAKE FOR THIS FOOLISHNESS is actually an argument for “serving from the left AND CLEARING from the left” (a policy that is slowly making its way into those fat, leather-bound fancy manuals I referenced). The reason that this wasn’t the policy from the beginning is that some misguided snotty person decided that it was important to a guest that they be given clean and fresh things with one hand and remove soiled things with the right hand.
And if that specific thought has ever occurred to you at any point during a meal, you win this year’s Gilded Twat Award for general twattery.
SUMMATION
“Well then, Mr. Pottymouth,” you may be thinking, “what IS the proper way to serve and clear in the modern dining room?”
Simple. It’s called “open-handed service”. Pick the side of the guest that is most likely to result in a swift, successful transfer of plates/silverware/glassware, and execute the maneuver with the matching hand so as to not put your elbow in the person’s face. Go in like you are going to give them a bro hug if that helps you visualize what I’m saying.
If you ARE in a situation where multiple servers are going to have to squeeze into small places to execute a transfer (and you are not confident in the skill or practical intelligence of your coworkers), then have a conversation beforehand about which way you are going in so you don’t clash elbows.
But more than anything else, remember that the “proper” way to serve a guest is whatever way maximizes your guest’s enjoyment and minimizes your footprint at the table, and that achieving those goals will require a variety of techniques that will vary from table to table.
Just don’t be a fake-fancy twat about it.