The Fork System

Have you ever planned to go out for lunch to a place you've never been, only to wish that you knew what kind of a place it is? Maybe a friend told you it was "kind-of fast food" or "a little bit nice," but what does that mean? Just as measurements were invented when somebody realized that "itsy-bitsy" and "great big" weren't going to cut it, the world needs an objective rating system for eating establishments. And so, World, I give you The Fork System.

The theory here is that you can tell what kind of restaurant you're dealing with from their eating utensils. The Fork System does not attempt to rate restaurants, but rather to categorize them. While you may have a good experience at a nice, clean fast food place or a bad time at a dumpy, badly run one, they are both fast food eateries and will both have the same Fork designation.

Here is the system, with categories ordered by price from lowest to highest:


No Fork/Plastic Fork: The cheapest form of restaurant, Fast Food. If you don't need a fork, you don't get one; if your order requires one it is plastic and sometimes packaged in a plastic baggie with a knife, paper napkin and paper salt/pepper packets. Variation: The Spork, the plastic offspring of a spoon and fork, is probably my favorite utensil. If you get a spork, you're at a fast-food place.

Wrapped Fork: A step up in from No Fork, this is the Casual Dining category. Here you get a fork made of real metal, along with a spoon and a knife, wrapped tightly in a napkin. At this level the Waiter makes his first appearance. This is a fairly wide-ranging category, with prices from just above No Fork prices and all the way up into Single Fork levels. To further differentiate inside the Wrapped Fork category, take a look at the napkin that wraps your fork. A cheap paper napkin is low-end, heavy paper is nicer, and cloth napkins may tell you that your Wrapped Fork restaurant wants to be a Single Fork restaurant.

Single Fork: This takes us into the Fine Dining category. The fork is unwrapped, to the left of the plate, and the knife and spoon are on the right. The napkin is cloth and may be folded into some sort of origami. The food is no longer cooked by cooks, but is instead prepared by chefs. The prices are higher but are still on the menu. Gentlemen, this is generally the lowest level acceptable for marriage proposals, Valentine's Day dinners, and anniversaries--and call ahead, because you definitely can't just walk in and be seated on February 14th.

Multi-Fork: Like Single Fork, but more--definitely Fine Dining. At this level the more utensils you see, the fancier the restaurant. Salad Forks, dessert forks, several glasses. Maitre d's, tuxedos, studied unobtrusiveness by wait staff--the sky is the limit here. If you can't find a price by your entree you can't afford it.


So there you have it. I hope you're asking yourself "How can one guy come up with a system so brilliant, so revolutionary, so useful?" However, you are more likely asking yourself "Why would somebody spend their time making this stuff up?" All I can say is that the whole fork thing was a random thought, and I had to flesh it out and write it up to get it out of my system. This is why I have a blog.

And there's more where that came from.


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