Dumbwaiters, restaurant food lifts

Dumbwaiters are restaurant service lifts dedicated to carrying relatively light weight items. They are used extensively in hotels, hospitals, offices and restaurants, and may be found in some private homes too. These types of lifts are generally quite small in physical size. They are often used to transport food from one floor to the next. In a restaurant setting, for example, a dumbwaiter might be used to move prepared meals from a basement kitchen to a first floor final preparation area, from where the meals can be easily delivered to the diners by a human waiter or waitress.

Uses for restaurant lifts

The modern service lift is really little other than an updated version of the once familiar dumbwaiter. Restaurant lifts are not found as commonly as the various other types of lifts we all encounter every day. They are designed to make the lives of workers’ easier in a variety of ways. In an office setting they may be used to transport documents up or down floors between various departments. In a hospital setting they typically may be used to carry prepared food from the kitchen to the patient wards.

This can save time and money as staff are not required to do the carrying. The small lift does it all, hour after hour, day after day, without complaint or comment, thus its early nickname of dumbwaiter.

Dumbwaiters are greatly favoured by health and safety inspectors. This is because the movement of items is largely automated. As people cannot be carried in these lifts, and they are usually too small in physical dimensions anyway, the opportunities for accidents and mishaps to personnel involving Dumbwaiters and dumbwaiters is considerably minimised. Without a service lift, staff need to physically carry documents or prepared food between floors. This means a constant flow of people in the stairwell, some going up and others coming down. A service lift negates the need for this.

Installing a restaurant lift does need to be well planned beforehand. Dumbwaiters require a lift shaft between floors. This is a much smaller shaft than one for a passenger lift of course, but it still requires careful planning and installation. Dumbwaiters are often located to be as unobtrusive as possible, minimising their footprint.

Restaurant Lifts are generally the smallest type of lifts to be found in everyday use. Because they are generally used for transporting things between floors that avoid the need for staff doing the same work, they are not often seen by the public. This is in keeping with the earlier concept of the dumbwaiter from an age where servants and service items were kept as invisible and as unobtrusive as possible.