How To Carry Three Glasses In One Hand

by | Oct 4, 2011 | Mechanics of Serving, Skills | 57 comments

carry three glasses

One of the first serving tricks that most servers learn is how to carry two glasses in one hand.  This is a basic skill of serving and will save many unnecessary trips if you work in a restaurant that discourages trays.  The shortcoming is that you are still limited to carrying three glasses at once.  If you are serving a table of four, you still have to make an additional trip.  This is why it was a beautiful day in my serving career when I learned to carry three glasses in on hand.

Today, I am going to demonstrate through pictures how this trick is performed.  This will prove incredibly valuable to servers who work in high volume restaurants.  A few disclaimers to answer some of the concerns you might have from this post.  First, these are full sized pint glasses as opposed to “cheater pints.” I did test them for the full 16 ounces.  Second, I do not have large hands.  The size of your hands is irrelevant to being able to perform this trick.  Hand strength and technique are far more important than hand size.  To demonstrate, I compared my hand to a twenty dollar bill.  If your hand is near this size, you can use this technique. (click on any picture to enlarge)

carry three glasses

Place the first glass in the palm of your hand

carry three glasses

The second glass rests on your thumb and pointer finger.

carry three glasses

The third glass sits in your three remaining fingers.

carry three glasses

As you grasp your hand together, the tops of all three glasses should meet.  This makes the process far more secure.  This will allow you to safely carry three glasses.

To further prove the simplicity of this trick and demonstrate that hand size is less important, I will also share how to carry four glasses.

The first glass is placed at the back of your palm with your wrist providing additional support.

carry three glasses

The second glass rests between your thumb and pointer finger.  The key here is to have the end of your pointer finger at the one o’clock position on the glass.

carry three glasses

The third glass rests between your pinky and ring fingers with your ring finger at the eleven o’ clock position.  When done properly, this leaves your middle finger free.

carry three glasses

The fourth glass sits atop your middle finger.  The tip of your middle finger keeps it from falling forward while the fingers to either side prevent it from falling sideways. 

carry three glasses

For those with larger hands, tilting slightly forward may be more secure.  I tilt slightly backward to allow my wrists to provide additional stability.

There you have my tricks on how to carry three glasses and how to carry four glasses in a single hand.  I find these methods to be more secure than using a tray when working in a crowded environment.  Once you have mastered this trick, you will have full control over the glasses and even be able to distribute them in any order.  Next, I will continue the “how to” series with the tricks for carrying three and four plates in one hand.

 

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