When using a restroom in a restaurant, how do you feel about seeing an "Employees Must Wash Hands" sign?

The sign is required by law.

Some people need a gentle reminder to wash their hands. It might even be a regulation in that state.

I’m pretty sure the health department requires those signs to be posted. They’re everywhere.

It could also be a slightly too flagrant way to assure the customers that they’re in a clean, hygienic restaurant.

Well some do need to be reminded of something that seems like you would naturally do but unfortunatly different germs have been passed from restaurant worker to patron that should not have been if only they washed their hands. So its just further proof that the signs are needed and hopefully obeyed but somehow I doubt in all situations they are.

It’s the law that the sign must be posted. I don’t think about it at all.

I think it’s some of all the suggestions. The sign is up for multiple reasons.

Seeing those signs reminds me that I should be at home cooking my own meal.

I know that regardless of signs, people will wash or not wash and so I treat all surfaces as if they’re yucky.

As others have listed the local board of health requires it usually. They also require hair nets and gloves in any area involved in food prep. That doesn’t mean they follow that either.
If the restaurant is not clean, I think more about that versus a sign.

That’s just their way of implicitly informing the customers that they don’t have to wash their hands, if they don’t want to. ;-)

It makes me feel worse.. I dont think people should be reminded to wash their hands..

I admit it always shakes my confidence a little bit. Do employees need this reminder? Do they heed it?

The health department will fine establishments if they inspect their premises and the sign isn’t posted.

As a business owner, I find the sign ridiculous

I believe state regulations require them to be posted. But it always unnerves me a little. Why should people need to be reminded?

Apparently Sloppy Poppy thinks such signs only apply to employees, and not restaurant owners. ;-)

@Brian1946 I hadn’t seen that before. That is funny.

If I saw such a sign I would feel the same way I would about a sign on a stroller which read: Remove child before folding up stroller, I would view it as an insult to my intelligence.

I feel it’s very pragmatic. I think without it, more employees wouldn’t practice hand washing as often. I would probably add another sign for fun. Like “Wash your hands too before and after you scratch your balls”. : )

But to add to this question, it totally annoys me that there are almost no more paper towels in bathroom any longer. If you want to wash your face in a rest area, you can pretty much only dry it by sticking your face under a blow dryer. Not cool.

How will anyone know if they don’t, wash their hands?

Yeeech!!!

@chyna In Europe they were very smart…., they invented dry blowers that you can turn 180 degrees, so that the blow hole is up :-)

Apparently there were some blowers that had the Madonna-style nozzle in NYC in 1985. ;-) You can see her ventilating herself at about 0:17 and 1:10 in the clip.

I hate those signs. They just seem so tacky! But, it’s the law, so I don’t think any less of the restaurant for having them there.

They don’t make me feel one way or another because I know they’re required to put them there. What I do find interesting are signs that tell you how to wash your hands (outside of a kindergarten classroom, anyway.)

How do you feel about the fact that the same sign is not posted in hospital bathrooms?

@martianspringtime you will be very surprised to learn then that, unbelievable as it may seem, some people do not know how to wash their hands properly. I have caregivers working in my home on a daily basis and there are still times I have to explain that washing your hands after you have used the toilet, does not mean coming into the kitchen, turning on a cold tap, swishing your hands under the water for a few seconds and drying on the nearest tea towel, I kid you not.