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Fast Food

Fast food is the most widely recognized type of restaurant thanks to franchise chains like Taco Bell, Burger King, and KFC.

Fast food restaurants attract diners because of their price, convenience, and speed. Because of this focus, ingredients in fast food restaurants are usually preheated or precooked (though not always).

Food is then delivered over the counter — or through a drive-thru window — and customers seat themselves.

Food Truck, Cart, Or Stand

Food trucks, carts, or stands are unique modern businesses that normally specialize in a single type of food (e.g., tacos, sandwiches, hot dogs, ice cream, smoothies, etc.) and serve a limited menu that revolves around those items.

They are generally categorized together with fast food restaurants because the focus is on speed. Additionally, seating options may be sparse or even non-existent

Coffee House

With the spread of Starbucks around the world, most people are familiar with the concept of the coffee house.

As a type of restaurant, the coffee house offers some unique features that you won’t find anywhere else, including:

• Casual atmosphere

• No table service

• Limited selection of cold foods such as pastries, donuts, and sandwiches

• Allowing guests to relax and socialize without the pressure to leave after eating

Coffee shops are similar to cafes, but the focus at the coffee house — and the item that most people show up for — is the hot beverage.

Coffee houses offer a wide variety of coffee drinks as well as hot tea and other drinks. The food in a coffee house often takes second place as a draw for customers.

For more information on this type of restaurant, take a moment to read our article, How To Start A Coffee Shop | A Detailed Guide.

Café

Cafes are characterized by outdoor seating, an unhurried atmosphere, and the loyalty of their repeat customers. Offerings include coffee, tea, pastries, small items for breakfast or lunch, and a small sampling of desserts.

Diners order food at the counter, pay on the spot, and serve themselves, so the café model does not require a large staff.

Turnover in cafes is usually low, and customers may work or socialize for long periods of time.

Fast Casual

Fast casual restaurants cater to customers who are looking for fare that is relatively quick yet, at the same time, healthier than fast food and more affordable than a casual dining establishment.

As such, fast casual types of restaurants offer quality food, counter service (as opposed to table service), and a more casual, contemporary style and décor.

Casual Dining

Casual dining types of restaurants usually share the following characteristics:

• Customers are served at their table

• Food offerings are moderately priced

• Atmosphere is low-key

• Décor is often unique and based on the type of food served

As a general rule, casual dining restaurants fall between fine dining and fast casual on the “fancy” spectrum.

Family Style

A family style restaurant is similar to the casual dining model mentioned above with one significant difference: servers deliver the food in large dishes and customers then serve the food for themselves and pass it to other diners at the table.

These types of restaurants often have a more relaxed atmosphere than the fine dining and casual dining models and cater to families with children or groups of friends.

Buffet Style

Buffets are an extension of the family style restaurant where customers are provided a selection of food at a fixed price.

Guests serve themselves and can return to the buffet as many times as they want.

The buffet concept lends itself well to specialty cuisine, including pizza, Indian, Chinese, “home cooking,” and breakfast foods, although this is not a prerequisite.

Cafeteria

If you attended grade school or high school in the United States, you’re probably familiar with cafeteria-style dining.

By definition, a cafeteria serves ready-cooked food items arranged behind a long counter. Patrons line up, take a tray, and file in front of the various food choices, picking out what they would like to eat along the way.

Some cafeterias offer:

• Fresh-cooked fare ordered from an attendant (omelets, waffles, cut-from-the-bone roast beef)

• Ready-made, pre-plated portions

• Self-serve portions (salads, soups, etc.)

Cafeterias are similar to buffets, but cafeterias typically have servers behind the counter ready to dish out the food you choose.

Some large corporations, factories, and hospitals have in-house cafeterias to feed employees and patrons alike.

That concept, though, extends to stand-alone restaurants all across the country. In fact, back in the first half of the 20th century (the 1940s, 50s, and 60s), cafeteria-style automats were a very successful type of restaurant in large cities like New York.

Automat cafeterias featured banks of vending units — not the automated kind of vending machines you’re used to in the 21st century — that displayed fresh food for sale.

Patrons would take a tray, deposit coins in the machine that offered their choice, lift a small window, and remove the food item therein. Attendants and cooks in the kitchen behind the vending machines would then replenish the food item for the next patron.

Diner

At one time, you could find a diner (a.k.a. a greasy spoon) in every town in America.

This type of restaurant is characterized by fried foods (e.g. chicken and fish), burgers, and breakfast items served at low cost.

Many diners were open 24 hours and featured booths and table service as well as a long bar with stools at which patrons could sit and receive their food straight from the kitchen.

Diners with a nostalgic theme — and even high-quality and high-priced fare — are becoming more common in downtown areas as employees at nearby businesses discover the benefits and convenience of leaving the office for lunch and an occasional break.

Pop-Up Restaurant

The pop-up eatery is a novel type of restaurant that allows owners and chefs to experiment with different ideas and different styles of food without changing their established location.

The pop-up restaurant is also a fun and unique way to “test the waters” to see if a specific concept or cuisine would be successful in a certain area.

Pop-up restaurants range in format from a beer garden that is only open from May through August, to a fine dining restaurant in a unique location (e.g. a warehouse, rooftop, or other old building), to a contemporary casual restaurant that moves from location to location every few nights.

The attraction of these restaurants often lies in their novelty, but the food and drink will keep customers talking for long after the pop-up disappears.

Contemporary Casual

Contemporary casual restaurants — a recent offshoot of the fine dining concept — cater mostly to young professionals in urban and metropolitan areas.

As a concept, these eateries are modern and trendy and often offer a distinct brand that diners find appealing.

Such concepts include but are not limited to:

• Eco-friendly

• Farm-to-table

• Large wine selection

• Locally sourced ingredients

• Fusion cuisine

• Extensive bar

The food, and often the restaurant itself, relies heavily on visual appeal (though taste is also important) and caters mostly to the Instagram generation.

Catering

Catering is the type of foodservice that would be selected for special events such as conferences, weddings, celebrations, or gatherings, small or large. It requires a caterer to provide, prepare, and transport food for clients who are hosting events somewhere other than a restaurant. Responsibilities may also include planning a menu, setting up, providing utensils and other equipment, serving the food, and cleaning up afterward. See the full list of potential responsibilities below.

Job Responsibilities

• Create menus for special events both large and small, and organize all items needed for delivery and meal preparation.

• Ensure that all menu items meet the expectation of the customer. This may include tastings.

• Obtain all ingredients needed for every item on the menu.

• Finalize menu items and head counts before the event to guarantee your team is prepared for the job.

• Transport food, tables, and other items needed to serve food during an event to ensure that all catering jobs move smoothly and efficiently.

• Organize the serving of the food after it is prepared in order to keep guests from getting hungry or too full all at once.

• Assist with clean up after an event to guarantee that no items are left behind to leave a bad image for the company.

• Manage other individuals, including caterers and servers, to keep the flow in the kitchen moving smoothly and to provide food to an event without problems.