Ask George: What do St. Louis restaurants do with leftover bread in the bread baskets?

What do St. Louis restaurants do with leftover bread in the bread baskets? —John R., St. Louis

Decades ago, staffers in a restaurant where I worked were instructed to return all whole, uneaten rolls to the bun warmer. The returns were to be placed in the bottom of the three-drawer unit and slowly rotated to the top drawer for reuse. No one thought a thing about the practice. A big reason: the cost.

If there’s one commonality about restaurant owners, it’s that they often complain about the cost of table bread and butter—gratis items in nearly all restaurants. Later, as table bread became a benchmark of a quality restaurant experience (better bread = better restaurant), owners felt pressured to spend even more on an item that contributed zero to the bottom line, further nudging them to do something, anything, to cut their losses.

Another restaurant of my youth had a white 10-gallon bucket designated for uneaten table bread. After the bread went stale, it was run through a “buffalo chopper” (a grinder with a large hump), and the resulting bread crumbs were browned and later put to use. Due to widespread fears of germs and contamination, such practices are now a thing of the past.

SLM spoke with five area restaurateurs who had virtually the same reaction when discussing the issue of leftover bread:

Ande Pietoso, co-owner of Cafe Napoli, Bar Napoli, and Napoli 2: “Bread that has been served to a table and comes back into the kitchen is thrown out. Besides being unsanitary, rewarmed bread quickly becomes hard and inedible. Untouched bread that is in the warming ovens at the end of the shift is bagged and used for our croutons and bread pudding at both restaurants.”

Charlie Gitto, Jr, owner of three Charlie Gitto’s restaurants: “Any bread that’s served to a customer that is not consumed is thrown out. Bread that is not served but left over, we make into our bread crumbs.”

Cassy Vires, head chef of Companion Bakery Teaching Kitchen: “Throw it out! Once it hits the customer’s table, it is no longer fair game. I personally try to use leftover bread in the kitchen for menu items—crumbs, croutons, et cetera—but nothing the guest gets and doesn’t use gets reused. Regarding waste, food pantries will only take packaged products—sandwich bread in plastic bags—and a lot of the bread we have is not packaged. Nonprofits come in and take what they can, but it isn’t as often or as regular as we would like. We tried for a while to repurpose our ‘wasted’ dough. We were giving it to a local farmer for feed, but we were actually creating too much, and they couldn’t keep up with what we were producing. Every few months, we come up with a different way to minimize waste, but it is an ongoing struggle for us.”

Mike Del Pietro, owner of six metro area restaurants: “I don’t reuse any of the bread that comes back off the tables. But any of the bread that we do make that is not served is cut up for croutons or garlic bread as part of the bread service.”

Rich Lorusso, owner of Lorusso’s Cucina and Lorusso’s on Grand: “Our leftover bread becomes either croutons or bread pudding, which has become our birthday dessert lately, because people love it so much.”

Ashley Shelton, exec chef of Sardella and Pastaria: “Neither Pastaria nor Sardella utilize bread baskets at the tables, so we’re able to control waste much easier that way as the bread is portioned and served one piece at a time as needed. Sardella bakes their own bread, so they can easily utilize any leftovers for bread crumbs or croutons. At Pastaria, we heat one loaf at a time, so there typically isn’t much left over…usually just enough to treat some hungry staff members at the end of the shift! We would most certainly donate it if we had it, but that isn’t really the case for us.”

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