At the Brooklyn Flea this weekend had a few chats with customers about rubber feet on cutting boards and thought it could be helpful to recap some of the info here.
All of our bigger boards have rubber feet on them, and the feet serve two purposes - providing some grip to keep the board in place, but also to keep the bottom of the board out of the water.
Lots of "serious" boards claim to be reversible and don't have any feet as a result, but then you either need to rest them on a damp towel or deal with them sliding around. The worst thing for a board is to stay wet for an extended period of time. If you're especially diligent, perhaps not a problem, but if you're having friends over and the night goes on and on, cleaning the kitchen is the bottom of the list. And stuff gets spilled on the counter. Or some water from the sink. Not everyone is in a professional kitchen, or has help, or has the room to move large boards around in kitchen full of dirty dishes. They'd rather leave the board in place most of the time and just give it a good wipe. And some oil some other time. And people do, and it's fine. But without feet, it can cause you trouble down the road.
Talking to folks at the Flea, heard of cutting boards that have warped and cracked (or worse, they'd say "in my kitchen, my cutting boards always warp and crack!" - like has happened to them multiple times...). Also stories of the bottom getting moldy and gross. Eww. So much for "reversible".
All of our bigger boards have feet. You can have a good party and clean it up tomorrow...