He recalled “After dinner, the Harvard students, in a loud voice, was supposed to ask his waiter for a toothpick.

He reasoned that if he could make the toothpicks acceptable at the Union Oyster House where all the residents of staid old Beacon Hill went to dine, he could make it acceptable at any restaurant in the city.įorster hired personable, well dressed Harvard men to dine at the fashionable Boston eating spot. His target was Boston´s famous Union Oyster House on Union Street, which is still open today and is the oldest restaurant in the US. I offered to pay for their dinners if they would help me sell my toothpicks”.įorster chose to concentrate on one restaurant. They were all on limited budgets, but they welcomed the opportunity to eat a hearty meal at a fine restaurant. “For a while, I was worried, I came across some Harvard scholars. “They didn´t think proper Bostonians would want to sit around after dinner picking their teeth with a slender piece of wood. “The restaurant owners down in Boston weren´t interested in my toothpicks” he told an interviewer year ago. Several year later Forster built a toothpick machine and opened a plant in the town of Oxford Country, Maine. When he returned to the US he brought several boxes of toothpicks with him. He noticed that the natives whittled slivers of wood for use in removing particles of food from between their teeth.įorster was impressed with the fine condition of the natives´teeth. And it was a group of hungry Harvard University students who helped the toothpick to become in.Ĭharles Forster, a native of Maine, came across toothpicks in South America shortly after the US civil war.

Back in 1887 the humble toothpick made the long social climb from the jungles of Brazil to the very best Boston restaurants. The toothpick is a routine part of northamerican dinning scene today.

Toothpick capital of the world