Going "green" is a relatively recent buzzword in the restaurant business that is right up there with "sustainable" and "local", "grass-fed" and "organic". Going green is everything from giving your youngest child the clothes the oldest has outgrown to bringing a ceramic mug into the local coffee shop for your morning latte to scribbling the to-do list on the back of an old envelope - things you've been doing for years. More recently going green has come to mean extra steps - changing your light bulbs to compact florescent, setting your recycle bin out on the curb every other Thursday, or putting a solar attic fan on the roof of your house.
It's basically good business sense to go green; the three tenets are re-use, re-duce, re-cycle. At Brooks Tavern, it's business as usual. Recycling has been a part of our operation ever since we were on the Infinity Recycling route at the Ironstone; then one of the favorite jobs was crushing the aluminum cans in the can crusher. At the time, we had just moved back east from that Green State, California, so we were already a little green. These days we are on the County's Recycling route; we continue to compost the vegetable trimmings and eggshells; we don't use Styrofoam; we've replaced some - but not most - of our incandescent bulbs; we give Cathy back her vegetable boxes and we give Mark the used fryer oil. The ways to save are endless, and we are constantly trying to do what we can to keep things green, be it buying sustainable seafood or using vinegar to clean the mirrors and glass.
Part of this greening of our lives makes us much more conscious of waste, and of how much we could save by eliminating waste. Which brings me to the point (finally, eh?) of this post - water. Specifically, that glass of water that people often ask for with their meal but never drink. Don't even touch, half the time. What's with that? We only serve water on request - one small water conservation practice that is actually mandated in some of the more water-starved parts of the country. We fill the requested glass with ice and water, we bring it to the table, and no one drinks it. We clear it away, dump out the unused water and wash the unused glass, which means more water being used to wash glasses that no one drank the water from in the first place. It all seems sort of...wasteful.
I am not sure why people order water and then don't drink it. Habit? Guilt? as in "I should drink 8 glasses of water a day...I'll start now"? (And what is worse is when people speak for the entire table, "Bring everyone water." We do it, because we are professionals; we would never be rude and say, "How do you know everyone wants water?" But there are people who just don't drink water at all. Why should we bring them water they don't want?) What ever, we, the dining room staff at Brooks Tavern, would like you to think twice about it. We are very, very happy to bring you that glass of fresh tap water, without ice or with, with lemon or without. Glad to do it. All you have to do is drink it. Such an easy way to prevent the waste of natural resourses, the waste of someone's time, the waste of money. Isn't that a part of going green?
It's basically good business sense to go green; the three tenets are re-use, re-duce, re-cycle. At Brooks Tavern, it's business as usual. Recycling has been a part of our operation ever since we were on the Infinity Recycling route at the Ironstone; then one of the favorite jobs was crushing the aluminum cans in the can crusher. At the time, we had just moved back east from that Green State, California, so we were already a little green. These days we are on the County's Recycling route; we continue to compost the vegetable trimmings and eggshells; we don't use Styrofoam; we've replaced some - but not most - of our incandescent bulbs; we give Cathy back her vegetable boxes and we give Mark the used fryer oil. The ways to save are endless, and we are constantly trying to do what we can to keep things green, be it buying sustainable seafood or using vinegar to clean the mirrors and glass.
Part of this greening of our lives makes us much more conscious of waste, and of how much we could save by eliminating waste. Which brings me to the point (finally, eh?) of this post - water. Specifically, that glass of water that people often ask for with their meal but never drink. Don't even touch, half the time. What's with that? We only serve water on request - one small water conservation practice that is actually mandated in some of the more water-starved parts of the country. We fill the requested glass with ice and water, we bring it to the table, and no one drinks it. We clear it away, dump out the unused water and wash the unused glass, which means more water being used to wash glasses that no one drank the water from in the first place. It all seems sort of...wasteful.
I am not sure why people order water and then don't drink it. Habit? Guilt? as in "I should drink 8 glasses of water a day...I'll start now"? (And what is worse is when people speak for the entire table, "Bring everyone water." We do it, because we are professionals; we would never be rude and say, "How do you know everyone wants water?" But there are people who just don't drink water at all. Why should we bring them water they don't want?) What ever, we, the dining room staff at Brooks Tavern, would like you to think twice about it. We are very, very happy to bring you that glass of fresh tap water, without ice or with, with lemon or without. Glad to do it. All you have to do is drink it. Such an easy way to prevent the waste of natural resourses, the waste of someone's time, the waste of money. Isn't that a part of going green?
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteI know this idea would go over like a lead balloon but it would solve the waste and assuming behavior. Try this...begin charging for water service and then crediting back an equal amount for all returned empties or near empty. How you'd sell or spin this idea should be no problem with your hosting expertise.
RF