Cafeteria

A cafeteria, sometimes called a canteen outside the U.S., is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether in a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or lunchroom (in American English).

In addition, there are often stations where customers order food, particularly items such as hamburgers or tacos which must be served hot and can be immediately prepared with little waiting.

In universities and colleges, some students pay for three meals a day by making a single large payment for the entire semester.

For example, schools, colleges and their residence halls, department stores, hospitals, museums, places of worship, amusement parks, military bases, prisons, factories, and office buildings often have cafeterias.

[2] At one time, upscale cafeteria-style restaurants dominated the culture of the Southern United States, and to a lesser extent the Midwest.

Perhaps the first self-service restaurant (not necessarily a cafeteria) in the U.S. was the Exchange Buffet in New York City, which opened September 4, 1885, and catered to an exclusively male clientele.

During the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, entrepreneur John Kruger built an American version of the smörgåsbords he had seen while traveling in Sweden.

The exposition attracted over 27 million visitors (half the U.S. population at the time) in six months, and it was because of Kruger's operation that the United States first heard the term and experienced the self-service dining format.

It has been conjectured that the 'cafeteria craze' started in May 1905, when Helen Mosher opened a downtown L.A. restaurant where people chose their food at a long counter and carried their trays to their tables.

Accordingly, the government also encouraged schools to provide meals for students in need, thus resulting in the conception of cafeterias or cantine (in French).

Support for this practice was also reinforced by the effects of World War II when the importance of national health and nutrition came under great attention.

Newer rooms which also act as the school's grand entrance hall for crowd control and are used for multiple purposes are often called the commons.

Modern-day British cathedrals and abbeys, notably in the Church of England, often use the phrase refectory to describe a cafeteria open to the public.

Typically, the college tracks students' plan usage by counting the number of predefined meal servings, points, dollars, or buffet dinners.

A college cafeteria system often has a virtual monopoly on the students due to an isolated location or a requirement that residence contracts include a full meal plan.