Squeamish diners have long made spoon polishing a nervous ritual, and almost everywhere a dirty café is called a "greasy spoon." But an investigation of restaurant hygiene in Connecticut has shown that, of all dinnerware, the spoon is most to be trusted; it is the bar glass that is furthest from grace. In swab tests conducted in nearly 1,000 restaurants, investigators found high bacteria counts on bar glasses "almost commonplace." A count of 100 bacteria per utensil is thought to be a safe level; bar glasses regularly approached counts of 3,000. And spoons were almost uniformly clean.
"An average of 60% of the restaurants inspected were using unsatisfactory or no bactericidal treatment," said a report on the tests last week. "Roughly 50% of their operators admitted they did not know they were supposed to be using any." Restaurants in cities were worse than those in small towns, where a slower pace helps keep utensils clean: more time is spent washing dishes, and many dishes are used so seldom that all but the hardiest species of bacteria simply die on the shelf.
Other states are no better. Most state health codes closely follow the U.S. Public Health Service code, but health authorities, always short of inspectors, can not watch restaurant and café proprietors closely enough. "All restaurant owners know what they're supposed to do," says the chief of Atlanta's inspectors. "They just don't do it."
Ironically, keeping utensils clean is easy with modern germicidal treatments—chlorine, iodine or quaternary compounds. Even a 30-second bath in water heated to more than 170° is believed by many health departments to be sufficient sterilization for previously washed utensils. But in busy bars, where the bartender has little light to see by and little time to spend with the dishes, the casual, conversational "dip and swipe" method is the common way of washing glasses.
The best method of improving restaurant cleanliness, says the Public Health Service, is the complaint—loud, and preferably in front of other customers. And until complaints begin to get results, prudent barflies can presumably benefit from Connecticut's experience by sipping whisky from a spoon.