What food safety rules do servers need to know?
The short answer
A shift, start to finish
Here’s where the Food Code’s handwashing and handling rules show up on a normal dinner shift (illustrative):
- Clock in, wash your hands. Before you touch clean silverware, glasses, or food. Use the handwashing sink, not the bar sink or the dish sink.
- Roll silverware or set tables. Handle forks, knives, and spoons by the handles.
- Bread and garnish. Use tongs, deli tissue, or a glove. Not your bare hand.
- Clear a table, then wash. Handling dirty plates and glasses is one of the “after” moments that call for a handwash.
- After your break, wash again. Eating, drinking, smoking, and the restroom all count.
- Refills. Pour without the pitcher touching the rim. Don’t refill a used plate or bowl for seconds.
Not tax or legal advice. Your restaurant’s procedures and your local health department’s rules come first.
Plain English
Who the Food Code covers
The FDA Food Code is a model code. FDA offers it to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, and each one decides which edition to adopt and when. FDA published a 2026 edition; the 2022 edition was the one before it. The rules below read the same in both, but the version your health department enforces may be older or have local changes.
The Code’s rules for staff apply to a “food employee”: anyone working with unpackaged food, food equipment or utensils, or food-contact surfaces. Utensils include tableware: forks, knives, spoons, cups, glasses, bowls, and plates. So setting silverware, pouring water, and running plates all count.
Handwashing: how
Wash your hands and exposed arms for at least 20 seconds with soap at a handwashing sink. The Code’s order: rinse under warm running water, apply soap, rub hard for 10 to 15 seconds (under the nails, between the fingers, fingertips), rinse, and dry right away. You can use a paper towel to turn off the faucet or open the restroom door.
Not at a food prep sink, a dish sink, or a mop sink. Those are off limits for handwashing under the Code.
Handwashing: when
- Right before you work with exposed food, clean utensils or tableware, or unwrapped single-use items like straws and to-go cups.
- After using the restroom.
- After touching your face, hair, or any bare skin other than clean hands and arms.
- After coughing, sneezing, using a tissue, using tobacco, eating, or drinking.
- After handling dirty plates, glasses, or silverware.
- Before putting on gloves for a food task, and after anything else that dirties your hands.
The Code does let you drink on the floor from a closed container, if you handle it so your hands and the food stay clean. Eating and tobacco use happen only in designated areas.
No bare hands on ready-to-eat food
Ready-to-eat food is food that’s edible without more cooking to make it safe, such as bread, washed fruit, and garnishes. The Code says food employees may not touch exposed ready-to-eat food with bare hands and must use a utensil such as deli tissue, tongs, a spatula, single-use gloves, or dispensing equipment. The Code allows narrow exceptions, for example with the health department’s prior approval and a written plan the restaurant keeps.
If you wear gloves, the Code has you wash your hands first, use the gloves for one task only, and throw them away when they’re torn or dirty.
Tableware: hold it by the parts guests don’t touch
The Code says clean utensils are handled so the food- and lip-contact surfaces don’t get contaminated. Silverware that isn’t wrapped is handed out so only the handles are touched. Dirty tableware is cleared and handled so it doesn’t contaminate the clean. Preset tables are wrapped, covered, or turned over, or the unused settings are pulled when guests sit down. More on this in how to carry plates and glasses.
For refills, you may top up a guest’s glass as long as the pitcher or spout doesn’t touch the rim. You may not use a plate, bowl, or cup the guest already used to bring them a second portion.
Working sick
Report vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, a sore throat with fever, or an infected cut or boil that’s open or draining. Vomiting or diarrhea keeps you out of work under the Code. Persistent sneezing, coughing, or a runny nose keeps you away from exposed food and clean tableware. See calling in sick as a server for what to say.
Hair restraints: the Code exempts wait staff who present a minimal risk of contaminating exposed food, but your restaurant can still require them.
Allergens
Never tell a guest what’s in a dish from memory. Check your restaurant’s allergen chart or ask the kitchen, and tell the manager about every allergy. See food allergens for servers.
Common mistakes
- Washing hands in the bar sink or the dish sink.
- Grabbing a bread roll or a lemon wedge with bare fingers.
- Carrying glasses with fingers inside the rim.
- Going from clearing a table straight to rolling silverware without washing.
- Working a shift after throwing up that morning.
Official sources
Last verified:
Checked the handwashing, bare-hand contact, hygiene, employee-health, refill, and tableware sections and the definitions of food employee, tableware, utensil, and ready-to-eat food in the FDA Food Code 2026, and compared them with the Food Code 2022 (January 18, 2023 version). They read the same on these points.
Still open: Which Food Code edition your state or city enforces, and any local changes to it, is not checked here. The 2026 edition changed the glove and jewelry sections; this page doesn’t rely on those changes.