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One of the most common decisions restaurant owners have to make is whether they should allow their employees, particularly their waiters, take leftover food home or if this food should always be counted as waste and immediately thrown out. This is an issue that is highly debated, not just by restaurant owners, by other individuals in the food industry due to its many pros and cons.
The most significant pros and cons of allowing waiters to take leftover food home are:
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In this article, we will discuss the pros and cons of allowing waiters to take food home in more detail. As you read, you’ll learn how this decision can have serious repercussions, both positively and negatively, for you, your staff, and your business, so you can determine which path is best.
Pros of Allowing Waiters to Take Leftover Restaurant Food Home
It is understandable why many restaurant owners might be wary to allow their waiters to take leftover food home. While these concerns are often based on logical reasons we’ll discuss more in-depth later in this article, there are also some significant advantages of this food-related perk that might outweigh the cons in your opinion.
As stated previously, the primary pros of allowing waiters to take food home include:
- Promotion of a positive work environment where employees feel cared-for
- Save staff money
- Ensures food isn’t completely wasted
- Can reduce the effect of low wages
We have illustrated the benefits of each pro in more detail below, so you can determine if this is reason enough to start allowing your waiters to not leave work empty-handed.
Promotion of a Positive, Caring Work Environment
It’s well-known that food is not only essential for people, but often a pleasure, which is why few will turn down the prospect of free food. After working hard all day surrounded by hot and steamy or cold and refreshing foods, most waiters/waitresses would appreciate the ability to take some home for themselves.
Not only does this mean they don’t have to worry about cooking food after their shift, but it also implies their superiors care enough about them to allow this privilege and ensure they are not only rewarded for their work, but well-fed as well. Typically, this will insight loyalty and is an effective incentive for these employees to do their best every day.
Saves Staff Money
In addition to being a reliable source of food, another benefit of allowing waiters to take leftovers home is that it ensures more of their paycheck goes to other essentials. This, in turn, allows some to save money, helps them pay bills, or gives them the opportunity to reward themselves.
Another important note to make here is that some waiters might be in a tight spot financially and allowing them to take those leftovers home rather than throwing them out could mean they and/or their family has food for the night rather than going hungry. Depending on what type of restaurant you own, this food could also be healthier and more fulfilling than the budget-friendly options they’d otherwise be forced to purchase (ex. TV dinners, fast food).
And again, the money that would have gone to those foods can now be used for more beneficial things.
Ensures Food Isn’t Completely Wasted
It’s always a shame to see perfectly good food thrown out when there are people probably within a five mile radius who would give anything to have it. While you should still record this food as “waste” in your inventory (since the employers aren’t paying for it) at least allowing them to take it home means that perfectly good food isn’t sitting in the trash to rot.
Can Reduce the Effect of Low Wages
We’ll start this by clearly stating that it is always more beneficial to pay your waiters a competitive wage that at least meets the state’s minimum than to pay them less and rely on their ability to generate tips.
That being said, if your restaurant has fallen on hard times and you are genuinely incapable of paying your employees the competitive wage that you’d prefer because you simply aren’t profiting enough, allowing them to take food home for free might be a way to compensate for their limited wages and still entice quality individuals to join and stay on your staff until your business is profiting enough to increase their wages.
Cons of Allowing Waiters to Take Leftover Restaurant Food Home
The benefits of allowing waiters to take leftover restaurant food home can be tempting and certainly convincing, especially if they’re coming from the employees themselves. Unfortunately, there are several reasons why most restaurants don’t permit this.
The overarching cons of waiters taking leftover restaurant food home are:
- Safety hazards
- Legal risks
- Implies favoritism
- Promotes theft
- Promotes intentional creation of waste
Below, we have discussed each con in more detail, just as we did in the previous section with this topic’s pros.
Safety Hazards
Probably the most significant con of allowing waiters to take food home from the restaurant is that it could pose a significant risk to their health. Food safety is crucial in any food venue, and while there are countless steps employees take to ensure this in the restaurant, you can’t control what your waiters do with the food once they leave. They could potentially leave the food unrefrigerated for extended periods resulting in the growth of dangerous bacteria that could cause food poisoning or other issues.
Another major risk is if the employees take leftover food from the plates of customers that have left. While this seems illogical and unhygienic, some waiters might claim the customer never or hardly touched a certain appetizer or dish and take it home not knowing the health risks they could contract from the food that was transferred from the customer.
Legal Risks
You’d like to think no employee would intentionally target your business, but sometimes the prospect of earning thousands of dollars in a lawsuit overcomes their loyalty to your restaurant and the meager wage they would earn working there comparatively. If a waiter takes food home from your restaurant and finds something wrong with it that would allow them to sue, then you have put yourself in an extremely unfortunate position by allowing this luxury.
Promotes Theft
This is the typical “give an inch, take a mile” mentality. Once employees are privy to your restaurant’s food in one sense, some will decide to take advantage of the privilege and start helping themselves to the inventory, in general, regardless of if it was part of the day’s leftovers.
Promotes Intentional Creation of Waste
Another way this privilege often snowballs into a larger issue is that, when waiters or other employees know they can get free food from your restaurant as long as it is leftover, they will often ensure food is leftover by creating excess intentionally. This is a crafty way for them to use your business’ resources to feed themselves. The result is reduced profit on your inventory and an increase in waste.
It can also be incredibly difficult to keep track of waste when employees are creating it in excess and taking it home rather than it being counted and thrown out.
Implies favouritism
This might be semantical, but if you’re asking this question with the true intent of solely allowing waiters/waitresses to take food home, then this might insight some jealously, frustration, and resentment amongst employees working other positions in your restaurant.
For instance, why aren’t the chefs who made the food taking any home or the host/hostesses who keep the staff organized and are the initial friendly faces of your restaurant? This could easily cause other staff positions to feel like management is favoring a specific group which could, in turn, reduce cooperation and communication between the groups and create an overall toxic work environment.
Final Thoughts
The decision to allow or forbid waiters from taking leftover food home is entirely up to the store’s owner and management staff. While some find it beneficial, most conclude the cons overweigh the pros, particularly when it comes to overall safety, work environment, and profitability.
Instead, we recommend giving all employees the perk of one free meal a shift/ free food up to a specific value (ex. $10 or$20) or giving them a discount percentage off any food in the facility, so waste isn’t affected, and they are still receiving a food-related benefit of having this job.
Sources:
https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/advice-guy/leftover-food-dump-donate-or-surrender-staff
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652617330950
https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/b4dl3d/why_dont_some_food_service_places_allow_employees/
