Etiquette for Using Menu Cards

“The menu card may be held in a stand, or it may lie on the table…”  – Above: Individual menu card from a 1990’s, nine-course etiquette dinner, at The RSVP Institute of Etiquette in California. 

On Setting the Table:

Menu Cards

The menu card may be held in a stand, or it may lie on the table: one in front of the hostess, one in front of the host, and one or two placed at regular intervals down each side of the table. This is not a rule, however, and at informal meals there is often only one menu in front of the host.– From Vogue’s Book of Etiquette, 1948

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia