Reducing Menu Waste
You mention the menus and that they should have been updated and copies made; i can’t help but find that wasteful, although clearly the system in place at UUBU6 is inefficient in other ways. aside from a walk-up counter-style menu posted on the wall or a chalkboard with the daily specials listed, have you come across any alternative ways to present an ever-changing menu without printing a new set daily? i mean, i guess they don’t have to print 80 menus for a dining room that seats 80, so maybe it’s not as bad as i think, although any amount less waste is good to me. not to mention, i remember you used to set people straight for using paper towels unecessarily- these days, i rarely use a full paper towel for anything, and i think of you whenever i rip one into thirds. not that i ever ripped you into thirds.
–Justin
You know, I was considering similar questions as I was getting dressed this morning, before I’d even seen your comment. The best answer I could come up with for an UUBU6-specific answer was along the lines of, ‘any restaurant serving toothfish obviously isn’t too concerned about using fewer resources,’ but that’s not really a valid answer.
Posting a chalkboard/ whiteboard works in certain settings (like Frankie & Johnnie’s in New Orleans), but doesn’t quite fit expectations at an upscale establishment. Having the waiter deliver the entire menu via oral recitation makes no sense, either—there’s no way everyone at a table can catch everything and you wind up with several repetitions of, ‘wait, what else was in that thing with the shrimp?’
I think perhaps the solution most approaching practicality is to recognize that even a restaurant that changes their menu on a regular basis, be it daily, weekly, or monthly, has a somewhat stable rotation of dishes that make regular appearances. Therefore, restaurants could print the dishes and descriptions on index cards that would slide into clips on the menu holder. Each dish could be swapped out individually and the cards could be saved for future use the next time that dish makes an appearance. Updating the menu might take slightly more manpower than it currently does; but when the waitstaff meets for lineup, they could form an assembly line, with each individual responsible for replacing a single card at a time.
As far as infrastructure concerns go (the cost of producing holders for these index cards), photo albums are already mass produced and available cheaply. They would be perfectly suited to this proposition.