AIBU to think all restaurants don’t do this?

[JustHereForThePooStories]

Out for dinner with a friend tonight and the bread came with a little dish of pesto, and another of butter. We dipped the bread in pesto, but didn’t use it all. I also used a small amount of butter, less than 10% of the contents of the dish, I’d guess.

I commented that it was a shame to see it go to waste as, while the dishes were small, there was two much for two people. My friend said that the restaurant would just top them up with fresh pesto or butter, and use for another customer. She used to work in various restaurants during university, and said this was common.

If you work/worked in a restaurant, can you please tell me this isn’t true? I can’t stomach the idea of someone biting bread, dipping it in pesto, only for me to eat the same pesto later.

My friend is 100% wrong, isn’t she?

these go out in ramekins where i work (chain ) and the dirty ramekins go straight through the dishwasher anyone doing reuse would be sacked instantly

Absolutely not, well, it's not been done in any places I've worked in! Only completely untouched stuff would ever be re-used.

One place even used to bin those individual sachets of sauces if they had been taken out of the holder and put on people's plates in case people had handled them with dirty hands! I did think that was a little bit wasteful.

Do you know how many germs there are in a pot of dip or mayo etc if they have been double dipped? Gross.

Then it'd make no sense to share one with a friend or group of work colleagues either if it that's bad. To be honest, they should ditch these things and go sachets only anyway.

gross i can see it happenening though if they think theyre gettin away with it

I work in a 'posh' garden centre. Nothing that goes out to customers, be it little packets of butter or pots of sauce, mayonaise cream etc is ever reused

The butter would have probably been used to cook with.

I've also heard that bones and leftover veg off plates are used in stock for soup.

Gross.

When I worked in hospitality anything in a pot was chucked/washed up and never reused.

However the practice of marrying the condiments was a common one. 2 half bottles of ketchup into one etc, mainly.to save having loads of half empty bottles lying around.

I work in a garden centre restaurant and this doesn't happen there at all. Anyone found doing so would be given their marching orders on the spot.

I've worked in F&B for about 30 years and never come across this happining in any kitchen or restaurant I've worked in. But guess it does in some unfortunately.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-5848667/How-party-dips-Norovirus-HERPES.html

So Person 1 dips their bread, touches it to their diseased mouth then dips it again. The restaurant tops up the dip and Person 2 gets herpes from dipping their bread in it. Disgusting

My Daughter worked for an Indian restaurant and they regularly used the leftover mint sauce and chopped onions etc for new customers.

This is why I always chuckle at the people who “don’t trust homemade food”. I presume they’ve never actually eaten in a restaurant.....!

I worked in a coffee shop, even full butter packets and miniature jars of ham were binned.

Jam, not ham!

I used to work in several restaurants where we used mini pots of sauce or butter. I don't know what other servers did but I just put the stuff in the bin and the pots in the washing up. I'm not really interested in spreading disease. Urg.

Never did this anywhere I worked ....and that was in the late 80s early 90s when food hygiene was unheard of in some places.

I was once told by a restaurateur that it’s illegal to re-serve anything that’s been taken to a table.
No idea if that is still true, but it sounds plausible.
Condiments might be an exception to this, but can’t see that butter is a condiment.
I really want bread and pesto.

Then it'd make no sense to share one with a friend or group of work colleagues either if it that's bad.
Its fine if you dont dip the same thing in after you have eaten a bite out of it or had your hands all over the dipping things first. If you have then you are passing all your bacteria on to your friends.

I had a Christmas temp job years ago and it was a disgusting place back then (I've been back in since and it's much nicer).

We were told to take the little stainless steel pots of milk, fish out the peas children might have put in there and pour it into the milkshake maker.

I wish I was brave enough to stand up and say I wouldn't be doing that but they terrified me.

Oh that's nothing. I worked in a pub while at Uni. They didn't have corks or stoppers in the red wine bottles and flies would get in, so management expected us to use a coffee filter to pass the wine through to get them out. Of course we also had to top up sauces. The bottom line for the brewery was profit, so pouring the wine away if it had a fly in it was unthinkable.

I have to say, we really weren't happy about doing this and used to put the stainless steel spirit measures to stop the flies getting in. One day we had a "secret shopper" who reported this, said it looked unprofessional and we were told to stop doing it.

Frequently happens, even in 'high-end' restaurants.

Yes, uneaten vegetables or salad were served to the next customer in the pub I worked in.

Used to work in a restaurant when I was in my teens and this would never have happened! Totally gross and unhygienic.

Ugh, not delighted with a lot of the replies!

Now I’m thinking about what else is reused? Slices of lemon/lime from drinks, those little physalis fruits on desserts that a lot of people seem to push to the side?

We always did this in the pubs I worked.

DH and I own a restaurant and there is absolutely no way we (or our staff) would do this. How disgusting