What a White Tablecloth or No Tablecloth Means at a Restaurant

Have you ever looked into the window of a restaurant before eating there and tried to determine what to expect based on the appearance? I’m not talking about the kind of food because that’s easy to determine by looking at the menu; I mean what kind of experience you might be having. Of course you can look at the reviews and photos on Google, but sometimes you want to just jump in uninformed like we used to do back before the World Wide Web existed. Every restaurant will give you some clues as to what to expect.

White linen tablecloths

This is likely going to be some very decent dining. It’s a restaurant that probably also has white linen napkins and maybe even an option for a black one if you’re worried about white lint getting onto your clothing. They have the budget for laundry — which will be reflected on the menu. It might even be a little old school with the server utilizing a crumber between courses. However, if it’s a place that has a piece of glass over the tablecloth and instead of changing it after each diner they spray down the glass, all bets are off. If it’s not a white tablecloth and is instead a red and white gingham tablecloth made of plastic, you might be in a Pizza Hut, circa 1983.

Butcher block paper on the table

There is a good chance that there are some crayons to go with that paper and that means it’s probably family friendly. It is nice to know that your tabletop is for you only and will be discarded after you leave. The service is going to be more casual and the server might even take one of those crayons and write their name on the table when they introduce themself. I had a server do that once and she wrote her name so that I could read it from my point of view meaning she wrote it upside down. Color me impressed. 

No tablecloth

This is probably the most common and you’ll see it in restaurants from a Waffle House in Atlanta to a Michelin-starred Mexican restaurant in Queens. In other words, no tablecloth means it can be pretty much anything. Hopefully, it’s a table surface that is easily cleanable and not a wooden one with cracks where food from long-gone diners can elude the wipe-down. 

Napkins

If you see a roll of paper towels, get ready for some messy eating. This is going to show up at a barbecue restaurant or a place that serves crab or crawfish boils. There is definitely going to be some of that butcher block paper on the table (or even newspaper) and next to the roll of paper towels will be an unlimited supply of Wet Wipes. This is no place for fabric, be it napkins or tablecloths. 

If there isn’t a roll of paper towels, but the napkins are still paper, this just means that the owner of the restaurant doesn’t want to go to the trouble of having a linen service. It doesn’t mean the food is bad. You can have some mighty fine food at a place that chooses to have paper napkins just like you can have less than decent food at a place with linen napkins. I know this because I worked at a Houlihan’s that had green linen napkins and everyone knows what to expect at a restaurant like Houlihan’s. It’s fine, but it’s not fine dining. I also saw way too many of those napkins get used to wipe up the floor or have noses blown into them, so I always prefer a paper napkin.

There are exceptions to every rule

There could be a diner somewhere with white linen tablecloths and there might be an upscale eatery with paper towels and Wet Wipes. Every restaurant is going to do what they do. But if you go into a place that has wooden tables with cracks that are full of food and the only napkins are those toilet-paper-like ones that you have to extract from a metal napkin dispenser, consider yourself warned.