Dumbwaiter — An Insight

The name sounds funny — dumbwaiter? Well, there is usually a story behind whatever seems funny at first. This term is not an exception and once you know why it’s called a dumbwaiter, it’ll all make sense.

Let’s first talk about what it actually is! A dumbwaiter is a small box-shaped lift that is specifically used to move food up and down in a building. It isn’t limited to food, you can also move dishes through floors. It’s basically to ease serving if the kitchen is located on a different floor than the dining area.

In most cases, dumbwaiters are popular in restaurants or in luxurious houses. The next question to address is the “why”. If you think about it, busy restaurants with kitchens on another floor are extremely hard to operate without dumb waiters.

We’re talking about a place where without a dumbwaiter, waiters will be moving up and down a fleet of stairs, non-stop, to serve food to their customers with the risk of it turning cold before it reaches them.

The next hurdle without this much-needed piece of tech will be the dishes! The dishes that the waiters will be required to move back to the kitchen. When humans are involved, the chances of accidents and tired waiters slipping and bumping into things are much higher. With this scenario in front of our eyes, it’s convenient to say that restaurants owners that aren’t investing in dumbwaiters need to rethink their operating strategies!

Circulating back to the funny name — let’s dive deeper into the history. The lift was initially used in houses where the kitchen was located in the basement. The lift was used by them to serve the food on the upper floors. This lift was also used to bring back the dirty dishes. This method of serving also prevented the food odor to spread and control the dish noises to echo throughout the house while serving. The term was hence originated because it served the purpose of a dumbwaiter that couldn’t be seen and heard.

When the times weren’t as advanced as today, this dumbwaiter had a different version. They were simply operated through a rope looped around a rafter or a pulley which was pulled or dropped down manually. Now that we have electric-powered devices, the dumbwaiters aren’t that dumb anymore.

Do I Need A Dumbwaiter?

If you’re wondering whether you should invest in a dumbwaiter or not, let’s go over a few points that may make the answer clearer for you. If you’re not tight on budget, a dumbwaiter is a good investment and you should definitely go for it, especially if you have more than one floor. Here is a dumbwaiter uk based service that might be helpful.

If you’re tight on budget and you only want to invest in a dumbwaiter if you have to then you can consider a few things. If your restaurant isn’t as busy and there aren’t many floors, your waiters won’t be under a lot of pressure. Hence, if there aren’t any accidents happening around and the customers aren’t complaining about the food being served cold — you can wait a bit longer before making this investment.