wherefore the straw?

[lesfen]

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and I think lesfen and i were separated at birth.  Yeah,  i'm a slob and I use a straw whenever possible.

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Awesome. Welcome to the family.

[loiosh]

In Australia, beverages intended for the female members of the dining party are often served with straws. Most people I've asked about it here seem to believe it's to keep pesky lipstick smudges off the glasses. Wine and beer are served sans straw.

[kellycolorado]

My mother in law asked for a straw in her soda at a french bistro here- They didn't have any! I told her I prefer to drink from the glass anyways and she said you never know how clean the glasses are. That really freaked me out! If the glass isn't clean won't the drink hit close to the top of the rim when it's full anyways, and disperse the germs into the solution? I guess I like living on the edge. (I really would like to know! It sounds like a few of you agree with my MIL- any scientific basis?)

[maxanon]

I thought the same, but I guess if they didn't clean the outside of the glass well enough the "germs" from the hands from other people and their lips would be on the outside. However, backwash is not accounted for.

I use straws when its summer drinks. The exception are alcohol containing ones. Bendy ones are the best.

[LynDel]

I use a straw to drink from 'to go' cups and to drink sodas at the movies. That's because I can't see to drink my soda properly.

Other than that, I don't really use a straw.

Sometimes when eating barbecue and my hands are greasy, it's easier to drink from a straw than to lift my glass, but that's not often.

[TheFoodTutor]

My goodness! What a topic! I was just thinking of this subject today, by the way, and I'm so glad this thread was started.

In answer to the question about cleanliness and straws, in most restaurants, the inside of the glass is exactly as clean as the outside of the glass, so if you're worried about your lips coming in contact with the rim of the glass, you shouldn't be drinking its contents. As far as saliva from previous customers, that glass should have passed through a dishwasher that sanitizes with heat or with chemicals, either way a testable and verifiable fact that your local health department keeps tabs on every time they visit.

As for the server's hands, most restaurant employees I know and work with wash their hands so many times per day that the skin on their hands actually becomes quite dry. We handle the glasses we serve where I work by the very bottom of the glass, but even if we didn't, I can guarantee that our hands are generally cleaner than those of your dining companions. And many places where I've worked don't have wrapped straws, but only unwrapped ones, so asking for a straw in one of those establishments defeats the purpose, as the server will have to grab the straw with his or her hand.

This subject came up today because I asked a co-worker about some of our patrons who ask for a cup of very hot water, then unroll their silverware from a napkin and drop the fork and knife into the hot water before eating. Why do they do this, was my question? He said that certain folk think all people are unclean, so they perform this ritual, along with asking for straws, to protect themselves from dirt and germs. "But," I interjected, "if the silver is dirty, then so are the plates that went through the super-heated dishwasher, and for that matter, the cooks who work here might have been picking their butts (pardon me) or rubbing their noses while preparing the food. If you don't trust people to serve you things that are clean, then I'd suggest not dining out at all, right?"

He laughed and told me that he had once eaten at a Waffle House, asked for a straw for his Coke, and his companion asked him, "Why you drinkin' wit' dat Sissy Stick?" He's never used a straw since.

I don't generally use straws, with very few exceptions. For takeout beverages, yes, and in one restaurant I know, the sodas are served in gigantic, vat-like cups that no normal human would feel comfortable drinking from. And I hate the ice problem as well. No one likes to get a face full of ice and liquid while trying to enjoy a meal.

But here's the real puzzler: I work in a restaurant that serves filtered water in cute little chilled glasses with no ice. For the most part, I despise the reactions I get when doing this, because it's something the restaurant does as a special service for our patrons. You see, we don't push bottled water on anyone, and serve everyone free ultraviolet filtered water in chilled glasses with no ice as just a little special "extra" for eating there. But many times, when I set down the glass, the patron looks at me, disdainfully, and says, "Excuse me! I need some ice!" As in, "I can't believe you're such a stupid server that you don't know I need ice with my water!" And then I explain that the water is filtered, but we can't possibly filter all the ice we use, so that's why we serve the water in chilled glasses with no ice, but I'll gladly get them ice, if they need it.

But then, even people who don't want the ice ask for straws. How can that be? If you put a straw in a beverage that has no ice, it bobs to the surface, hangs out of the glass, drips everywhere, and is a general nuisance. And yet they still do it! Why? I wouldn't ask this, if it didn't happen more often than not, so why?

And here's another question for you: If you do like to have a straw in your iceless glass of water, would you ask for one from your server? And if you could easily see that in his or her long, pressed, black bistro apron, she was not carrying a bundle of straws, as servers at very casual restaurants do, would you ask her to run and fetch you one? Would it be that important to you?

Whew! Sorry to rant. I run and fetch a lot of straws, obviously.

[Jaymes]

...but also pointed out how glasses, both dirty ones being bussed and clean ones for set-up, are often in grabbed in groups by their rims, in sequence, by the same bare hands.

This is why I usually request a straw. It is absolutely stunning to me how often servers (that have bussed other tables, fingered money via tips or taking dollars back and forth to the casher, stood around scratching various parts of their own bodies, etc.) absolutely insist on putting their hands all over the rim of my glass.

[lancastermike]

I never use a straw, I am all the time taking straws out of glasses and laying them on tables. I do not like them and never use them. I am also an ice chewer so this may explain it.