What is the difference between cafeteria and canteen

The meals are usually prepared as per order. Restaurants offer a wide menu and the pricing varies greatly depending on type of food served and the service provided. Restaurants that offer a much exotic meals and exquisite services are known as high-end restaurants and are rated from , with 0 being a fast food restaurant and a 5 being a high-end one. Professional cooks are known as chefs, with them being further classified under finer distinctions such as sous-chef, chef de partie, etc.

Fast food restaurants do not have chef and they have a self-service layout, where the person has to stand in a line and get food from the counter, pay for the food and then find a place to sit.

The food is consumed first and paid for later. Seating in a restaurant can be inside as well as outside. A cafeteria is also an eating establishment that may or may not offer a seating arrangement. A cafeteria also serves food and soft drinks for a monetary value and the food may or may not be consumed on the premises.

In a cafeteria, the food would be served on a counter where it would be set up in a buffet form, counters or stalls. The food is prepared in the back and placed in dishes on a heater in the stall.

The customer must grab a tray and go through the line of the foods placed, selecting whatever they want and then pay the money towards the end. We can precharge our money in to this card and pay the food by it. But I am not very clear the name of this "restautant". Can you image what I have express? If so ,would you like to give me some advice?

In American Universities, that's called a "dining hall". Kurt Jiang said:. English-Ireland top end. Beware of simple explanations. A particular difficulty is that the terms restaurant and cafeteria may be used differently in public establishments versus educational institutions, and in the UK versus the US. I suggest you take all of the above, check some dictionary definitions, use the search engine of your choice, and try to come to some kind of general sense of what these terms mean and how they are used.

Then pick the one that best matches your own situation. Hey British English experts, We're currently debating over whether to use the term "cafeteria" as we've used in past years or "canteen" in one of our publications to denote the category of self-service eateries in general and not work canteens specifically. For your information: we use BE as a standard in our publications, but since we're addressing an international audience, will revert to the internationally best-understood term in case the BE norm might lead to confusion.

What seems to be the consensus if any amongst BE speakers? Is "canteen" the general term that you would use when going to dine at work, at a museum, at a university, etc.? The main criterion of a cafeteria is self service. Thus, it is different from a restaurant where you go, sit, and then place an order through a waiter who serves the food of your choice.

Canteen is a word used in British setting more often than in American society, where it is mainly military canteen to serve people from the armed forces. In commonwealth countries, canteen is a word that describes an eating place that is simpler than a cafeteria, and is found in places like colleges, factories and hospitals to serve a simple menu.

The rates of food items in a canteen are also less than that in a cafeteria. Everything clear now from a British perspective. And since most are now built on office parks away from the city center it means everyone has to get in the car and drive to get some food.

Really, mgb? I've been in the UK for decades and I haven't heard the word cafeteria in use, at all. Fattie Fattie I disagree with you on two points: "canteen" as a place to get food isn't really in common use in a large chunk of the U. Further, not every shopping mall has a Food Court. Al HI Al! That's why point 5 exists.

Canteen meaning a place to eat is not well-known at all here in the U. I'm very surprised - I lived in many parts of the US for many long years, dealing with language constantly, and I would have said everyone in the US knows that word even if it "sounds foreign or british". I will edit. For what it's worth, the only incidence of "factory canteen" in the Corpus of Contemporary American English is from someone speaking about a town in Scotland.

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Tim Lymington So are you saying a canteen is not limited to selected products?