How to Load a Dishwasher Properly According to a Pro

There are not a lot of hills that I’m willing to die on, but I do have a few: The superior flavor of ice cream is vanilla, despite there being hundreds of varieties from dill pickle to rum raisin. The Brady Bunch is one of the best sitcoms in the history of television right up there with All in the Family and I Love Lucy. And nobody can load a home dishwasher as efficiently as someone who has worked in a restaurant. 

Loading a dishwasher takes skill and there are probably YouTube tutorials and entire podcasts dedicated to this mundane, but necessary task. Marriages have crumbled beneath the weight of this chore, determining the right way and the wrong way to do it, but I have the answer: If someone says they know the best way to load a dishwasher and that person has worked in a restaurant for more than 18 months, trust them.

 Working in restaurants teaches you a lot. You learn efficiency and how to anticipate future needs, because when you have a full section of customers, each one needing something at the exact same moment, you figure out how to get as many things done in the most logical manner possible. These are lessons learned at the restaurant that we carry with us when we leave, along with random teaspoons in our aprons and the smell of food in our hair. 

Back to front is the only way to load glasses

When I load a dishwasher at home, I know that it gets loaded from back to front. It’s the same at work when I’m putting dirty glasses into an empty rack. It was drilled into my head that this is the only way to do it. If you put the dirty glasses in the front of the rack, every time another glass is added, you have to carry it over the ones already there and you run the risk of knocking into them and breaking them. “Back to front, back to front,” the guy in the dish pit would bark at us servers. And believe me, whatever the dishwasher says, we do. Those people keep the restaurant running.

Plates go in order of their size

When it comes to adding plates into the dishwasher at home, they must be placed in order of their size. Putting a saucer next to a larger plate and then another saucer only takes more time to unload it later. When all of the plates of the same size are placed next to each other they can be pulled out all at once for a quicker unloading process. I know this for a fact, because when I load the dishwasher at home, I can unload it in three minutes, according to the clock on the coffeemaker.

When my husband loads it haphazardly as one who has never worked in a restaurant does, it takes me up to a minute and a half longer to unload it. Ninety seconds might not seem like a lot, but when I’m on my way to work in the morning, it can make the difference between catching the Q32 bus or not catching it. 

Silverware needs to be sorted

It’s the same with silverware. Our dishwasher has a rack for it and the spoons go next to other spoons just like the forks and knives do. Any other way is pure madness. That’s how it is in the restaurant and that’s how it is at home.

Large items go to the back

Foresight is something else that I learned while working in restaurants and I use that skill when loading the dishwasher. If it’s empty and I’m loading a large bowl, foresight tells me that other things will need to join that bowl throughout the day. Just like with the glasses, it goes to the back of the dishwasher and is as upright as possible so there’s more space for other dishes. Laying that bowl in the front of the rack only means it has to be moved over and over again every time something else is added. Ask any restaurant person and they will agree.

There's no room for argument

 If there’s ever a difference of opinion on how to load a dishwasher and the other person has strong feelings on it based on their restaurant experience, acquiesce. Say no more about it and do as they wish. They are right. They know it, I know it, and now you do too.