Journalist Andres Oppenheimer relates that during a stay at a Cuban hotel, he called room service for breakfast. A somewhat agitated young man brought up the food an hour later, not a surprising delay by Cuban service standards, and left before Oppenheimer noticed that the tray was missing tableware. Faced with another long wait, Oppenheimer decided to use his toothbrush to stir his coffee and spread butter and jam on his toast. The next day, the man again neglected to supply tableware after bringing breakfast, and this time Oppenheimer jumped up and chased after him when he realized it was missing, but again the man was gone, and again Oppenheimer had to use his toothbrush.

On the third day, Oppenheimer had the man wait while he inspected the tray. Politely confronted with the fact that the tableware was once again missing, the young man grudgingly and apologetically explained the problem. Due to the many shortages that plagued the Cuban economy, it was common for people to steal what they needed from their workplace, including eating utensils. As a result, the hotel management had cracked down and made each waiter responsible for a set of numbered utensils, which they would be required to keep in their lockers when not in use and which would be inspected each Friday. So why then wasn't there tableware available? Because the waiters had not yet arrived at work due to the delays in bus service. He was not a waiter, he explained, but rather a busboy, and could not open the locker and bring Oppenheimer any of the tableware.

At a Cuban restaurant, management dealt with the same problem by chaining the tableware to hooks bolted on the underside of the table. Unfortunately, due to the constant pulling of customers and the hooking and unhooking when the tableware needed to be washed, the fragile chains snapped, and many of them were soon reduced to half their original length, forcing patrons to eat with their heads hovering over their plates. Management replaced this unpopular policy with a less conspicuous one. After taking back the tableware following the meal, the waiter would give the customer a little piece of paper with a number on it—an official certification that the utensils had been returned—which the customer would then be required to surrender to a guard at the door before being allowed to leave.

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