Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Back in the late 90s I was working in a nightclub in the UK. It was my first time when I had to use a 'professional' dishwasher. That thing could wash 50-70 glasses in 3-4 mins and I remember that when I was pulling out that tray it was hotter than the sun. We had 5-6 trays for each dishwasher of them and at any given time 1-2 trays were out filled with glasses cooling down.

These were like tiny ovens (same horizontal dimensions but only 40-50cm tall)

I haven't worked in a restaurant so I don't know about that complexity (cutlery, porcelain wearing out) but glasses.. oh man we had 99% mostly pint glasses (beer/UK) and shot glasses and 1% wine and champagne glasses, and considering people breaking them we had to restock (replace broken or replace worn out) every week.



At one point West Virginia had a very large glass industry, including production of drinking glasses for eastern cities. Sustained breakage ensured a large steady market.

https://www.glassonline.com/usa-opinions-differ-on-decline-o...

"One hundred years ago, by one historian's estimate, the bars, hotels and restaurants of New York City broke 500,000 glass tumblers every day." (2003)


I’ve never worked at a place where we broke 1 glas a day on average, let alone 1 tumbler.

That would put my estimate at over a million bars, hotels and restaurants in New York in 1903.


You could work at plenty of places that don't break 1 glass a day and the average could still be 1 glass/day.


I'm guessing there must have been significant deliberate breakage.


Recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41173177

East Germany invented 'unbreakable' drinking glasses


The article is about people, actual human beings washing the dishes by hand.


Yes, and yet...

Guzman says he's a better chef for having cleaned pots and pans and worked his way up in the kitchen. “Cooking school doesn’t prepare you for a broken dishwasher,” he says.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: