[Tagging] Fast food vs. restaurant vs. cafe

Steve Bennett stevagewp at gmail.com
Wed May 5 00:22:40 BST 2010


On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 5:04 AM, Phil! Gold <phil_g at pobox.com> wrote:
> * Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.Net> [2010-05-04 09:47 -0700]:
>> I generally regard fast_food as a place where you have to walk up to a
>> counter and order your food. Even if they do bring it out to your table
>> when ready, they will not generally come back to refill your drinks or
>> bring additional courses. Tips are not expected.
>
> With those criteria, what distinguishes fast_food from cafe?

I was wondering the same thing. In both a McDonalds and some cafes,
you could go in, order an orange juice and a muffin, pay, receive
food, sit down, eat, leave. We all have our preconceived notions about
why McDonalds is "junk food" or "fast food", but I wish you good luck
finding any really objective criteria to distinguish it from many
other establishments that we would prefer to call "cafe" or
"restaurant".

(Just to make life even hearder: is McCafe a cafe or fast food?)

Steve




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