I saw this in a restaurant today. No idea what it is.
byu/trsuco inwhatisit
Have you ever seen this piece of equipment? Redditor trsuco spotted it in a restaurant and asked the server, who, displaying a strange lack of curiosity, had no idea what it is. Then he turned to the hive mind for identification. Even after I saw the answer, I couldn't find another example elsewhere. Maybe I'm not using the correct search term, because this can't be the only existing one.
Continue reading if you are out of guesses.
Whether your butter came in sticks or economy-size lumps, putting it through this machine would result in pat-shaped single servings, on a small plate. Commenter pbasch related that his grandmother had a restaurant in the 1930s, and they would collect unused butter and recycle it, presumably while it was soft, but the story says they melted it. They may have used a machine similar to this one. Still, you'd have to serve a lot of pats of butter to justify such a machine. The discussion at reddit goes into the mechanics of the butter cutter and why it would be useful in a restaurant.
Looking online for a butter cutter today brings us a gadget like this, and if you ask for a butter dispenser, you get pumps for melted popcorn butter. There are butter pat makers to be found, but they are fancy molds. Considering how many redditors knew what the machine is, there must be a name for it, but I haven't found it yet.