THE STORY OF BLACK NAPKINS

Did you know that fine dining restaurants often stock black napkins for guests who spill on themselves while wearing dark clothing. This custom dates at least as far back as 1985, when Danny Meyer opened the Union Square Café in New York City. 

In those days there were three choices for napkins. One, give people a white cotton one that would invariably lint resulting in people walking out of the restaurant looking like a Dalmatian! Two, white polyester, which did not lint but was awful. Three, 100% cotton napkins which did not lint but were so expensive that it would bankrupt the business. That is what led to black napkins.

By the late nineties, black napkins were in “full bloom” and became a kind of secret handshake between swanky restaurants and the people who spend a lot of time in them. A 1998 article in an American lifestyle magazine observed the following:  “Upon arrival at the Pavilion restaurant, a greeter immediately identifies guests wearing dark attire and replaces their napkins with black ones. She went on to note that, in addition to preventing lint disasters, black napkins conceal whatever food or makeup a diner has smeared on them, allowing for “continued confident napkin use.” The hotel’s general manager told the magazine that black napkins are “an excellent ice-breaker,” adding, “People sit down to dine and say, ‘Wow, I have a black napkin.’ ”

Around the turn of the millennium the situation changed as good quality linen that doesn’t lint became affordable. Nevertheless, many restaurants continued to stock black napkins. Was their motive nostalgia or the potency of the black napkin as status symbol? 

Today the keepers of the black-napkin flame downplay the use of it but it is clear that it is still in use, perhaps in a less obvious way;  

To quote some restaurant owners:

“We do the black-napkin thing as white all-cotton napkins still produce a little lint…. I hope it’s not pretentious”

“There are customers who get pissed if we don’t have them. I get it. When you have a dark suit, who wants white lint all over it?”

Once again using linen above cotton reigns supreme as lint is not an issue with linen, but the story of the black napkin is good enough to stock black linen napkins and to tell the story to your fellow diners.

Ending on an even more interesting note, according to the slang Website Urban Dictionary, the phrase “black napkin” denotes something “that is probably above average but is trying a bit too hard to be more than it really is.”

Perhaps dining with “black napkins” will make for an interesting evening after all….