What are the advantages of a dumbwaiter?

The main purpose of a dumbwaiter, or a more sophisticated service lift, is to save time and to make the place where which it is serving be much more efficient.

When Thomas Jefferson had one fitted in his house in Virginia, it was so that he could only have one servant around his table which meant that more of his guests could enjoy the view without it being crowded out by lots of people bringing the food. Similarly, in British upper-class houses in the past, dumbwaiters provided a quick and easy way to bring lots of food to lots of guests quickly and thus keep up with the stringent rules of etiquette which governed such occasions.

Clearly, such concerns are not really pertinent today but dumbwaiters do still have advantages to the modern world.  They can allow, when adopted into an office setting, heavy documents to be transported quickly between floors and between departments and they can also allow for numerous hot meals to be transported to a party eating in a restaurant all at once whilst only one waiter is serving them- this reduces the amount of people needed to serve each table and thus saves money.

Dumbwaiter Information Guide: