A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance and offerings, including a wide variety of cuisines and service models ranging from inexpensive fast-food restaurants and cafeterias to mid-priced family restaurants, to high-priced luxury establishments.
Waiting staff (BrE), waiters / waitresses, or servers (AmE) are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attending to customers by supplying them with food and drink as requested. Waiting staff follow rules and guidelines determined by the manager. Waiting staff carry out many different tasks, such as taking orders, food-running, polishing dishes and silverware, helping bus tables, entertaining patrons, restocking working stations with needed supplies, and handing out the bill.
A boarding house is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "room and board," that is, some meals as well as accommodation.
A dining car or a restaurant car, also a diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant.
In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is offered. Menus may be printed on paper sheets provided to the diners, put on a large poster or display board inside the establishment, displayed outside the restaurant, or put on a digital screen. Since the late 1990s, some restaurants have put their menus online.
Room service or in-room dining is a hotel service enabling guests to choose items of food and drink for delivery to their hotel room for consumption. Room service is organized as a subdivision within the food and beverage department of high-end hotel and resort properties. It is uncommon for room service to be offered in hotels that are not high-end, or in motels. Room service may also be provided for guests on cruise ships. Room service may be provided on a 24-hour basis or limited to late night hours only. Due to the cost of customized orders and delivery of room service, prices charged to the patron are typically much higher than in the hotel's restaurant or tuck shop, and a gratuity is expected in some regions.
In restaurant terminology, a table d'hôte menu is a menu where multi-course meals with only a few choices are charged at a fixed total price. Such a menu may be called prix fixe. The terms set meal and set menu are also used.
Moto was a molecular gastronomy restaurant in the Fulton River District of Chicago, Illinois known for creating "high-tech" dishes which incorporate elements such as carbonated fruit, edible paper, lasers, and liquid nitrogen for freezing food.
Be Our Guest Restaurant is a table service restaurant in Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort. The restaurant has the theme and appearance of the Beast's Castle from Disney's 1991 animated feature film Beauty and the Beast. The name of the restaurant is a reference to "Be Our Guest", one of the signature songs from that film.
Kowloon Restaurant is a pan-Asian restaurant in Saugus, Massachusetts. The restaurant serves a range of Cantonese, Sichuan, Japanese, Polynesian, and Thai dishes in several themed dining rooms and lounges. Kowloon was called one of the best Chinese restaurants in New England by Boston television station WHDH in 2004.
The Brasserie Georges is a restaurant located in the 2nd arrondissement of Lyon. It is the oldest brasserie in the city and one of the largest brasseries in Europe. Its reputation is now international. With a history closely linked to that of Lyon, the brasserie serves typical dishes including the famous sausage of Lyon with pistachios, and recipes from other regions such as sauerkraut, baked Alaska or the seafood on their menu. In 1986 the brasserie served the biggest sauerkraut in the world; it weighed a ton and a half. In 1996, the largest baked Alaska was served. The Brasserie Georges brews its own beer, a tradition from its inception, when water in Lyon was considered of exceptional quality. The restaurant never closes throughout the year. Over 700 guests can be served at each service. On 8 December, during the fête des lumières, over 2,500 meals were served in a service. It is sometimes called the BG or Le Georges.
Restaurant Nora was a restaurant owned by chef Nora Pouillon in Washington, D.C., and was America's first certified organic restaurant.
Pirates' House is a historic restaurant and tavern established in 1794 located in downtown Savannah, Georgia, United States. A portion of the structure, known as the Herb House, was built in 1853. The structures either side of it developed between 1794 and 1871. The modern restaurant was founded by Herb Traub and Jim Casey in 1953, and is one of Savannah's most popular tourist attractions.
The Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant is a theme restaurant at Disney's Hollywood Studios, one of the four main theme parks at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, United States. Established in May 1991, the restaurant is modeled after a 1950s drive-in theater. Walt Disney Imagineering designed the booths to resemble convertibles of the period, and some servers act as carhops while wearing roller skates. While eating, guests watch a large projection screen displaying clips of 1950s and 1960s films as Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
A Greek restaurant is a restaurant that specializes in Greek cuisine. In the United States they tend to be a different affair, varying in types of service, cuisine, menu offerings, table settings, and seating arrangements. Their menu may also feature dishes from other cuisines.
The Grey is an American and Southern restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is co-owned by John O. Morisano and Mashama Bailey, the latter of whom also serves as head chef.
Abigail Mbalo-Mokoena is a South African chef and restaurateur. She is the chef, owner and creative director of 4Roomed, also called 4Roomed eKasi Culture or just eKasi, in Khayelitsha township, 30 kilometres (19 mi) outside Cape Town, South Africa. In 2019 4Roomed was named in a combined project by Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure magazines as one of the 30 best restaurants in the world.
Ate-Oh-Ate is a Hawaiian restaurant with two locations in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. Named after the area code 808 in Hawaii, the restaurant's logo depicts a "happy, well-fed" pig. Ben Dyer, David Kreifels, and Jason Owens are co-chefs and co-owners.
Space 220 Restaurant is a theme restaurant at Epcot, one of the four main parks at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, United States. Run by the Patina Restaurant Group, it was established on September 20, 2021, as a space-themed restaurant. It is modeled after a space station and has simulated daytime and nighttime views of the Earth inside the dining area. Guests are brought into the dining area through a simulated journey 220 miles up to Centauri Space Station using a space elevator known as the Stellarvator.
Upperline Restaurant, or simply Upperline, was a fine dining restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Opened in 1983 by restaurateur JoAnn Clevenger, the restaurant was housed in a yellow townhouse located at 1413 Upperline Street in Uptown New Orleans near the St. Charles Streetcar Line. The restaurant focused on and was celebrated for mixing Cajun, Louisiana Creole, and Southern cuisine. Though Clevenger was not a chef, she developed Upperline's signature dish of fried green tomatoes with shrimp rémoulade, and inspired many other menu items. Upperline temporarily closed in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2021, Clevenger announced the restaurant would not be reopening and that she and her family planned to sell the building and possibly the business.
