Common styles of service, types of service in restaurant, special forms of service

1. Styles of service
Submitted to:
Mrs.R.Subha,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Home Science
Submitted by:
K.P.Lakshana,
II M.Sc Home Science- Nutrition and Dietetics

2. introduction
● Service is described as the method used in serving food in hotel operations.
● In food service operations, production as well as service of food assumes great
importance.
● Food is produced in the commercial kitchen and served in the restaurant.
● The layout, menu, inventory, price of food and interior décor of the restaurant will
be determined by the styles of service to be offered.

3. Factors That Influence The Type Of Service:
● Type of establishment
The type of service in a luxury restaurant which offers expensive dishes to
business class customers will be different from the type of service offered to
customers in a fast food restaurant.
● Type of customer
Factors such as age, income level, status and occupation of the customers
influence the type of service. For example a restaurant which is frequented by
customers from middle-income group cannot afford to provide full silver service which
costs more.
● Time available
If the time available for meal is restricted, for example one hour, as in
industrial canteens, buffet service will be ideal to serve a large number of workers at
the same time.

4. ● Turnover
A high turnover will be possible when the service is quick. But this depends on
the pricing policy of the establishment. When the price is higher, the standard of
service will be better and the seat turnover will be slower.
● Type of menu
The items offered in the menu should be considered in deciding whether the
service is going to be pre-plated or full silver service and so on.
● Site of establishment
If the restaurant is located in a busy area where the rate of customer flow is
very high and quick service is required plated service, cafeteria service or buffet
service will be ideal. In such situations silver service or gueridon service will not be
possible.

5. Styles of service:
There are number of service styles to be followed when it comes to how food
and beverages should be served to the customers. Service approaches can be broadly
categorized in three ways. They are:
● Table and counter service
● Self service
● Tray service

6. Table service:
● It is the most commonly used service in the
commercial segment of the industry.
● It can be extremely single or elaborate, and its
distinguishing characteristic is service by a
waiter/waitress.
● In this type of service, the guest enters the dining
area and takes seat.
● The waiter offers them water and menu card.
● The table is covered in this service.

7. Counter service:
● Counter service is often found in coffee shops,
fast food outlets, hostels, schools where the
customers are looking for speedy service.
● These may use different counter arrangements
and with limited member of staff to serve.
● Often table and counter service may be
combined.
● The handling and controlling of guest checks is a
major concern in this type of service .

8. Self service:
● In this type of service, the guest enters the dining area, selects food from the
counter and carries food by himself to his seating place.
● This is the simplest form of service methods. Self service is characteristic of the
food service industry, with variations like counter pick up, take away, drive
through, etc.
● Buffets, vending machines, refreshment-stands at public places and mobile food
service units could also be placed in this category.
● The need for this type of service is really increasing as it provides service at any
hour and in every imaginable place.

9. Cafeteria service:
● The guest picks up a tray and selects the food from the display
counters.
● At the end of service counter, a cashier totals up the cost of the meal
by checking the food on the tray.
● The guest pays for the meal before going to the dining section.
● The service counter will generally be separated from the dining area.
● The customers may then sit at the chairs and tables provided by the
catering establishment.
● In some establishments high tables will be provided so that customers
can stand and eat.
● This is a common practice to lower labour costs.
● Cafeteria service is mostly used in industrial and employee feeding
operations .
● Various types of counters like the straight-line counter or the u-
shaped or hollow square counter may be used.

10. Buffet:
● Buffet service is used in commercial and institutional food service.
● College and school, hostels, employee cafeterias in hospitals or
industrial organizations, events like receptions, coffee parties,
promotional campaigns, etc. can use this type of service.
● It enables a facility to serve more people in a given time with fewer
personnel.
● In this type of service, food is arranged on a long table in an
attractive manner with garnishes according to proper sequence,
from appetizers to desserts.
● The guests go to the buffet table, pick up plates, cutlery and napkin
and all other items and serve themselves dishes of their choice or
may request the waiter behind the buffet counter to serve them.
● Dishes at the buffet are kept ready for service at a set time and
are available at a set price .

11. Vending machine:
● Vending machines are used for self-dispensing of items
like hot and cold beverages, chocolates and in some
places items like sandwiches and snacks.
● Vending machines offers the advantage of automatic
dispensing to customers at any hour with limited
personnel, i.e., only those required for maintenance of
these machines.
● In this style of service, guests get the dishes from
machines.
● They buy tokens or coins and insert them into the
vending machine and get the dish of their choice by
selecting appropriate option.
● Vending machines are installed at busy areas such as
airports, railway stations, bus stands, schools and
hospitals.

12. Tray service:
● It is the method of serving of whole or part of the meal on trays to customers in
situ.
● E.g. hospitals, aircrafts and sometimes in ODC as well as lounge service, room
service and home delivery.
● In this style of service the dish that is ordered by the guest is portioned and
arranged on a tray along with the required cutlery and served quickly in his place.

13. Hospital tray service:
● The Ganymede system or tray service is one of a number of
commercially available tray service methods used in hospital
catering.
● Basically, individual patient trays are made up on a conveyor
system according to the patients’ pre-ordered requirements.
● Trays once completed are transported to the wards in
ambient cabinets.
● Beverages may be added at ward sites before presentation to
the patient.
● The patients receive their meal presented appetizingly on the
plate and piping hot.
● Labour and administration costs can be reduced in this type
of service .

14. Airplane tray service:
● In an airline tray service, when all the food has been
prepared, the required quantities of each dish are placed
on trays which are either put into hot cupboards and kept
hot until being transported into the plane, or alternatively
are chilled and stored in the catering unit until required
and, when necessary, re-heated on board the aircraft.
● In between meals, tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes are
served with cold drinks.
● Special dishes for vegetarians and invalids are available.
● There are colourful wine and menus also.

15. Types of service in a restaurant:
 Silver service
 Plate service
 Buffet service
 Cafeteria service

16. Silver service:
● Silver service is, in effect, what has emerged from restaurants blending together
elements of French, English and Russian service.
● Silver service is commonly used in high standard restaurants, luxury trains and
passenger ships.
● Full silver service consists of food served at the table on platters, the waiter then
proportioning out the food on to the guest’s plates from these platters using a
spoon and fork.
● Semi silver service has the main foods plated and served to the table and the
accompaniments such as the vegetables, condiments or sauces or served by the
waiter.
● The term ‘silver’ embraces stainless steel and also fire-proof enamel dishes, china
or earthenware. These latter dishes are normally presented on oval ‘flats’ of silver
or stainless steel.

17. Sometime, silver service has been called ‘Continental’ which
includes four major services. The four major service styles are thus
recognized as:
● French service - Gueridon service
● English service - Silver service
● American service - Pre-plated service
● Russian service - Silver service

18. French service:
● This style of service is also known as “family service”. This style of service is found in
family pensions in France as well as in banquets where the food is presented to each
guest from the left-hand side to help himself.
● The food is brought from the kitchen on platters by the waiter and shown to the host for
approval.
● The food platters are then placed on the table. The host portions the food onto the guests’
plate directly or portions the food and allows the waiter to serve onto the guests’ plate.
● If the guests’ want to replenish food, the waiter may serve the dish or take it around for
guest’s to help themselves.
● Alternatively food can be brought from the kitchen in dishes and salvers and placed on
the table. The guests help themselves and serve the food from the dishes or salvers onto
their plates. This type of service is practiced in ethnic restaurants especially Chinese and
Indian restaurants.
● If the number of guests is than four, a side table or trolley can be used by the waiter to
keep plates, service equipment and dishes.

19. Gueridon service:
● This type of service can also be termed as “Trolley service”.
● In this style of service a dish is partially prepared in the kitchen and is completed in
the restaurant by the waiter.
● Sometimes a complete meal is cooked on a gueridon trolley at the tableside in the
restaurant.
● The gueridon trolley is a mobile trolley with a gas cylinder and burners. Different
types of trolleys are used in restaurants.
● The design of the trolley varies based on the purpose for which it is used. Some of
the trolleys seen in restaurants offering gueridon service are carving trolley,
flambé trolley, hors d’oeuvre trolley, cheese trolley and liqueur trolley.
● The waiter is required to fillet, carve, flambé and prepare the food with
showmanship in front of the guest for which he has to possess deftness and ability.
● The food is then served to the guest using service spoon and fork. This type of
service is practiced in luxury and up market restaurants.

20. English service:
● In this style, the dish is presented to the left of the guest and served by the waiter.
● It is thought to have originated in the British tradition of the ‘master’ or family
head/carving or portioning and serving all at the table.
● In restaurant English service, the waiter fulfills this role, that is, the fundamental
element is that he serves and at the same time, in effect, decides the portions as
distinct from the guest taking his own.
● English service has the advantage of conveying a stylish or up market impression
with relative speed and efficiency but it does require skill from staff. It is, for
example, difficult to apply successfully to fragile food, for example, fish fillets,
omelets etc.

21. Russian service:
● This type of service can also be termed as “Sideboard Service”.
● This is an elaborate silver service in which display and presentation of food play a
major role.
● In this style of service, whole joints of meat, poultry, and fish are elaborately
garnished, presented to guests and carved and portioned at the side board by the
waiter.
● The food is then served by the waiter from silver platters onto the guests’ plate
using service spoon and fork.
● After service, the dishes are placed on a hot plate in the sideboard to keep them
warm.
● Each course of the menu is served from the sideboard.
● This style of service is not practiced much in recent times.

22. American service:
● Fundamentally, this simplified form of restaurant service evolved more recently
than French, English and Russian services.
● It depends on pre plating and the pre-setting of tables with silver needed
throughout the meal.
● The guests are provided with a menu card for the meal.
● Maitre d’ host or waiters bring plated food from the kitchen by tray that is then
placed on a tray stand by the guest’s table (an elementary form of gueridon).
● American service is, therefore, plate service adapted to restaurant usage.
● Its advantages lie in its economy of equipment (sparing of dishes and silver), speed
and simplicity. Hence, inexperienced staff can learn it easily .

23. Plate service:
● In this method the food is prepared and put on a plate
(plated) at the kitchen and a waiter brings the plate from the
kitchen to the table.
● This is the most common service in restaurants. This type of
service is used in canteens, many boarding houses, hostels
and restaurants, where more personal silver service
cannot be given.
● In some bistros style restaurants the plate service varies- a
customer orders their meal at a counter and a waiter
brings the meal to the assigned table or number is called
and the customers themselves collect their plated meal
from the counter .
● Plating food requires care and supervision. Care should be
given in choosing a right size plate and arranging foods
according to their color and consistency.
● Trays are used by waiting staff for this type of service.

24. Cafeteria service:
● Industrial and institutional catering makes widespread use of cafeteria service.
● Food is set out on one or more counters with heated, unheated and refrigeration
sections.
● Customers pick up a tray at the entry to a service line, and pass along the line
selecting food as required.
● Cutlery and paper napkins are at the end of the line (or sometimes set on tables in
the dining room) next to a cashier who receives payments. This may not be required
in some institutional services where meals are pre-paid.
● Commercial cafeterias may augment service by having staff at each station to
assist or provide call-order service for grills, breakfasts or toasted sandwiches,
etc.
● In institutional catering where meals are presold through an ‘en pension’ charge to
students or other types of institutional customer, dishes are usually set up on the
counter in order of consumption from soup through to sweet.

25. Buffet service:
● Modern hotel operations increasingly adopt a buffet service, which involves guests’
self-service.
● Guests help themselves to most items and these can include hot dishes.
● Carveries are a form of buffet service.
● For buffet service, food is arranged on a buffet table in trays, on chafing dishes,
oval flats, entree dishes, etc.
● Plates, hot or cold (as applicable), are stacked at the head of each line or table.
Napkins and silverware are normally located at the end of the buffet line.
● A qualified member of the waiting or kitchen staff is available to deal with carving
or portioning and is in attendance even in self-carving operations.

26. Specialized forms of service:
● Hospital tray service
● Airline tray service
● Rail service
● Home delivery
● Catering and banquet
● Room service

27. Rail service:
● Food and beverage operations on trains are as in the
main conventional restaurants, take away counters and
trolley operations.
● On sleepers, a limited type of room service is provided.
However, these services are provided on moving trains
away from base stations and suppliers.
● In some specialized trains like luxury holiday trains or
tourist specials there could be a tray system similar to
airlines, where the food and drink is served to
passengers at any seat.
● In some trains, there is a restaurant car where tables
are laid and the waiter-waitress service is provided .

28. Home delivery
● Food delivered to a customer’s home or place of work.
● For example, home delivery of pizza.
● Probably the first type of home delivery and the most
well-known is the Meals on Wheels service provided by
local authorities as part of their welfare activities.
● More recently, home delivery service has become a
part of the profit sector. Services range from Indian
and Chinese takeaway deliveries, to restaurants
providing full meals (hot, or cold for customers to re-
heat).

29. Catering and banquet:
● It can be quite profitable, because the number of guests is known in advance, and
the menu if fixed.
● Overproduction and wastage can be avoided.
● Buffet service is the most widely used form, but table service can also be used.
● Events such as receptions, cocktail parties, conference lunches, can use this form.
● The advantage is that the service may take place on or off the premises of a facility.
In off premises catering or Outdoor Catering (ODC), the food is transported to a
wide variety of places.

30. Room service:
● Floor or room service varies from basic ‘in room’ tea and coffee making facilities,
as well as, possibly mini-bars, to vending machines on floors, or to the service of a
variety of meals in rooms.
● Depending on the nature of establishment, the extent of service in guest rooms will
vary.
● In five-star hotels 24-hour room service is expected, whereas two and three star
hotels service may be limited to ‘in room’ tea and coffee making facilities with only
continental breakfast available to be served in the room.