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“A Napkin with your Dinner? Not so fast.”

Waiters don’t have easy jobs. If you’ve ever been a server, you know what I am talking about. From what I remember of my days of waiting, here’s how it goes: Greet the table, take the water and drink order, check in with menu questions, take the dinner order, refill wine glasses, clear and reset silverware between courses, fire the main courses, make sure the food gets out in a timely manner, and regroup with the table after apps and entrees are served to make sure everyone has what they need. Ditto for dessert, and after dinner drinks/coffees/teas. Finish with a final good-natured good bye after the check is dropped. This dance at its best is flawlessly choreographed to woo diners back, and at its worse is a hellacious mess that can ruin a restaurant. Either way, it’s a show that’s performed over and over every night, until the last dish is served, and the last guest bid goodnight.

So, as I said earlier, the job of a waiter ain’t easy. But now a few restaurants have added another service element to this routine that not only borders on completely ridiculous, but also adds a needless service step to an already full roster of responsibilities. I speak of a new trend I’ll call “napkin service.”

The first time I encountered it was at Shang, Susur Lee’s pan-Asian restaurant in the swanky Thompson Lower East Side hotel. Craig and I were seated at a nice table for two along a long wall of banquettes in the low-lit ebony dining room. Our menus were presented to us, and I instinctively reached for a napkin to place in my lap, but found only a set of chopsticks. Hmm. Perhaps they’d forgotten to set the table? Well, I didn’t really need it, it was more force of habit. So I read my menu, with a napkin-free lap. After our drinks were served, however, my hand got wet from the cold glass, and I did need a napkin. I flagged down our waiter. “Excuse me, but we didn’t get our napkins? Could we have them?” I asked.

Our waiter smiled and politely informed us that we would be served our napkins in due course. “We’ll be served our napkins?” I asked. “What happened to having them on the table?”

“Oh, we don’t do that here. This is a little something special,” he said.

“Well, can I have a bev nap from the bar at least, I spilled my drink,” I pleaded.

“Sure,” he said returning with a little white square.

Indeed, as promised, in due course, a tidy man dressed in black came around to our table carrying a bamboo tray of folded napkins. They had a dedicated napkin server. I chuckled as I imagined the Craigslist ad for this position: “Seeking professional napkin server. Must have excellent folding skills, preferably at an upscale retailer like Barney’s. Fine-looking immaculately-manicured hands required. A demure tableside manner a plus.”

“Pardon me, but would you like a napkin,” he said, offering it to us with a pair of tongs like it was some sort of caviar topped blini. I was thinking, Is he kidding? Now a napkin is considered optional? Like some people might say, “Nah, I don’t want a napkin. Really. I’ll just use my pants, thanks.” How ridiculous, I thought as I nodded my head and answered, “Sure, how lovely of you to offer. I’ll take one!” Completely absurd!

Then last week, while having an early bite at David Burke’s Fishtail, I noticed that the table was not set with dinner napkins. Our drinks had been served, and again, I needed to dry my hands from the moisture on the glass. I looked again at the table setting and noticed that the placemat was actually swaddled in a napkin, and I thought, Maybe this is my napkin? But it looked like it would be rather complicated to undress the placemat. So when our waitress returned to take our order, I asked her if I was meant to unwrap the placemat or if they had forgotten to set the table with napkins. I got the same response as I got at Shang.

“We serve napkins with dinner,” she said. “It’s a little service thing we like to do.”

She made it sound like she was doing me a favor by keeping that cumbersome napkin off of the table.

I was incredulous. “So, let me get this straight, during cocktails and while snacking on this great big bread basket, I’m not supposed to have a napkin? I’ll get it in time for my dinner?” She smiled, “Yes, that’s how we do it here,” and trotted off.

But when dinner was served, our napkins were not. “Excuse me,” I said as our waitress turned to leave, “but do you think I might have that napkin now?” “Oh, of course,” she said, sheepishly, and went to fetch them for us. We waited as our food got cold; I didn’t feel I could start eating until I was dressed in my napkin. Odd, but true.
I don’t know about you, but I find this to added “service” element to be utterly bizarre. If restaurants want to improve service, have them work with their team on the fundamentals of hospitality, and not waste time teaching them needless circus tricks that ultimately end up forgotten amidst the myriad of other responsibilities a server has on a given evening.

So here is my plea: please bring back the good old days of unfettered napkin distribution. Don’t mess with tradition.

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Posted: April 5, 2009

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