The Gross Reason You Should Never Trust Restaurant Lemon Wedges

Working as a server can be a fast-paced and high-pressure experience. Customers may be demanding or impatient (seriously, don't pull out these phrases if you don't want to annoy your bartender), orders can pile up at your station, and sometimes, in the rush to get every drink to its table, little lapses in hygiene can slip through the net. According to a thread on Reddit discussing restaurant server secrets, the lemons used to flavor water or garnish your cocktails may not always be the cleanest.

For anyone who has worked in a restaurant bar, this may sound eerily familiar. After all, while food preparation areas are often carefully scrutinized, the bar can sometimes get forgotten about. Supporting this, servers on Reddit shared predictably hair-raising anecdotes about lemons getting dropped on the floor and then sliced and added to drinks or servers clearing dirty tables and then handling lemon slices without washing their hands. In many restaurant bars, lemons are sliced in advance and stored in a tray with chilled soda water to keep them hydrated and ready for use. If servers aren't using tongs to fish them out, there are a lot of hands going in and out of that dish which means a lot of germs are likely going into the customers' drinks.

Since the evidence on Reddit is mostly anecdotal, you might think these are just isolated incidents. However, there is a bit of science to back them up. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health reported that out of 76 restaurant lemons that were swabbed for bacteria, 53 were found to have various microbe species growing on them. Overall, the study found 25 different microbal species on sliced lemons across the 21 locations visited.

Fortunately, there are plenty of conscientious servers out there on Reddit looking to raise standards when it comes to restaurant lemons and limes. Rather than using open fruit trays, one bartender commented that their venue stores sliced lemons and limes in Kilner jars, "so whenever not in use the jar is sealed and the fruit is kept fresh and moist for longer." Some also state that lemons and limes should be cut fresh every day and thrown out at the end of a shift rather than being kept overnight.

While all this will certainly help with the aesthetic appeal of the fruit, it's unclear if it makes much difference in terms of keeping away bacteria, especially if fruit slices are being mishandled by staff or general hygiene protocols, such as handwashing, aren't being followed. (This is a bigger issue than you might think as many American restaurants have inadequate handwashing stations.) So, if you want my advice, you're better of skipping the lemon next time you order a drink from your local restaurant.