As a pretty frequent restaurant patron in New York, I’ve recently noticed that more and more servers across all types of restaurants — from casual establishments to fancier ones — don’t write down my order when I’m selecting from the menu. Aside from wondering whether they’d actually get my order right, this also led me to ponder: Has this become an industry standard? Is there a rule book of sorts that restaurant workers follow? Does an eatery look better if its employees write down orders, or commit them to memory instead?
“There isn’t really an industry standard when it comes to writing down orders versus memorizing them,” said Rick Camac, the executive director of industry relations at the Institute of Culinary Education’s New York City campus. “Either way, servers need to track not only every order but the table and seat numbers as well.”
It follows, then, that jotting down the names of requested dishes in seat order may minimize the potential for error.
That said, folks in the industry seem to agree that memorizing orders is more common at relatively high-end restaurants than it is at casual ones.
“The higher the market segment, the more likely the orders will be memorized,” said Camac. “It is looked at as being more sophisticated to memorize orders in comparison to writing them down.”
Mary King, a former restaurant manager and current editor of website The Restaurant HQ, echoed those sentiments, with a caveat: Overall, using a pen and a pad is still more common than the paperless option.
“Memorizing orders is more common in fine dining restaurants, and writing down the order is more common in casual spots,” she said. “Industrywide, though, I think writing down orders is more common than memorization.”
What’s perhaps most interesting is why fine dining establishments have come to be associated with a lack of order write-ups.
“It is connected to a restaurant’s idea about who is in charge of the guest’s experience,” posited King. “In a fine dining establishment, the chef and staff are ‘in charge.’ Writing down an order would flip this dynamic on its head: The server is literally taking an order from a customer. That’s not high-end. That’s not fine dining.”
Also, fancier eateries frequently offer more streamlined menus that allow for fewer modifications.
“In fine dining, a server doesn’t need to remember the customer’s modifications because the chef is not going to modify the dish,” King said.
No matter the type of venue, it is clear that “taking notes” (as writing down orders is called in gastronomic circles) and memorization practices each come with upsides and downsides.
