STYLES OF SERVICE

Food and beverage service styles can be broadly classified into three main groups:

 Waiter service
 Self Service
 Assisted Service

Waiter Service

In this method of service, food and beverages are served to guests by waiters at the guest’s
place. It may be in a restaurant, hotel room, flight, hospital, and so on.

This service is further classified into the following

 English Service
 American Service
 French Service
 Guéridon Service
 Tray Service

English Service

It is also known as silver service. In this method, dishes are presented and transferred to the
guest’s plate using service spoon and fork from the left-hand side of the guest while
beverages are served from the right-hand side. It is regarded as a formal service. It is
implemented in upscale restaurants.

Points to remember
• Serve food from dish/platter on to guest’s plate using service spoon and fork from
the left-hand side
• Conduct clearance from the right-hand side
• Serve beverages from the right-hand side

Advantages
• Personalized service
• Customer satisfaction
• Waiters have scope to exhibit their service skills
• No plate wastage

Limitations
• Calls for high level of service skills, hence more labour cost
• More staff required
• Low seat turnover
• Slow service
American Service

This is a simple and informal form of service. It is also termed as pre plated service. In this
style, dishes are neatly plated in the kitchen by the kitchen staff and placed at the guest’s
cover from the right-hand side.

Dishes such as prawn cocktail, salads, soups, masala dosa, vada sambar, sandwiches,
burgers, ice creams, and so on, are served in this way. This style of service is followed in
restaurants located in busy areas, Coffee shops, fast food outlets, and casual dining
restaurants.

Points to remember

• All plated food is served from the right-hand side of the guest
• Beverages are also served from the right
• Clearance is done from the right-hand side
• Tray is used to carry cups, bowls, saucers, and under plates
• Tray should not be used to carry full and half plates
• Move clockwise when you work from the right-hand side and counterclockwise
when you work from the left hand.

Advantages

• Service skill is not required

• Low labour cost
• Needs fewer waiters
• Quick service
• High seat turnover as service is fast
• Kitchen staff has scope for demonstrating their plating skills

Limitations
• No personalized service
• Chances of plate wastage
• Skilled waiters do not have scope to show their service skills
• Food may become cold
• More of kitchen time and labour

French Service

This is also known as family service. In this style of service the dish is presented to each
guest from the left-hand side to help himself/herself. For a small party of two to three
guests, the dishes are placed on the table with service implements and plates for the guests
to help themselves.

Alternatively, all dishes may be placed on the table and the host may serve all his guests at
the table first or assist them in service and serve himself finally.

Advantages

• Service skills not required

• Low labour cost
• Seat turnover is more compared to silver service
 • Quick service
• No plate wastage

Limitations
• Service staff will not be able to demonstrate their service skills
• Food may go cold
• Guests may spill or burn himself
• Needs more area on the table
• Guests may feel neglected

Russian Service

This is a very elaborate service and is termed as sideboard service. In this style, large joints,
roast poultry, whole fish, and so on, that have elaborate garnish, are presented to the host,
taken back to the sideboard, carved, portioned, and served to the guests with service spoon
and fork. After service, dishes are kept on a hot plate in the sideboard to keep them warm.
Each course is served from the sideboard. This service is not practiced much in recent times.

Advantages
• High level of guest satisfaction
• Personalized service
• Waiters have scope to exhibit carving, portioning, and service skills
• Good presentation

Limitations
• Calls for highly skilled staff, hence higher labour cost
• More wait staff required
• Low seat turnover, as time taken for service is more

Guéridon Service

This is also termed as trolley service. In this style of service, dishes are prepared, carved,
dressed, or flambéed on a trolley in front of the guests and served with service spoon and
fork. The design of a trolley varies according to its purpose. Carving trolley, flambé trolley,
hors d’oeuvre variés trolley, cheese trolley, and liqueur trolley are some of the trolleys
found in restaurants offering guéridon service. This type of service is practiced in luxury, up
market restaurants.

Advantages
• Highly personalized service
• High level of customer satisfaction as the dishes are prepared, carved, or flambéed in
their presence
• Good merchandising device
• Wait staff can exhibit their culinary, carving, and service skills
• High average spending power (high revenue/cover)

Limitations
• Slow service
 • Low seat turnover
• Expensive style of service as it requires more service area and highly skilled staff
• Chances of accidents are more
• More investment on service equipment
• Cooking in the service area may leave odour.

Tray Service

In this form of service, the dishes ordered by guests are neatly portioned and arranged on a
tray with necessary cutlery and taken to their rooms/beds/seats by waiters.

Special trays are available to retain temperature of dishes. This style is practiced in room
service, hospitals, flights, and institutional catering.

Advantages
 Service skill is not required, hence low labour cost

Limitations
 Tray area may not be adequate to accommodate more dishes unless the number of
dishes and portion size are predetermined, as in case of flight catering
 Waiters will not be able to exhibit their service skills
 No personalized service
 Food may go cold unless insulated trays are used.

Self-Service

This is the simplest form of service methods where members of service staff do not serve
guests. Customers help themselves with the dishes they would like to consume.

Self-service is classified into:

 Cafeteria
 Counter service
 Vending

Cafeteria

There are two types of cafeteria service in practice.

 Traditional cafeteria
 Free flow cafeteria
Tradition Cafeteria

It consists of a straight line of counters containing a variety of hot and cold dishes. The
customer starts from one end of the line, picks up a tray and moves along the length of the
counter as he selects dishes he wants to have. The cashier, at the end of the counter makes
the bill and collects payment. This is not required if the meals are pre-paid. Normally, the
service counter is separated from the dining area.
This form of service is widely followed in institutional and industrial catering establishments.

Flow of activities in traditional cafeteria system

1. Guest enters
2. Picks up the tray
3. Joins queue at the counter
4. Picks up the dishes of his choice as he moves along
5. Pays to the cashier at the end of the counter (not necessary, if pre-paid)
6. Picks up cutlery and napkin
7. Goes to the dining hall to eat

Traditional Cafeteria Layout

Free-flow Cafeteria

In ‘free-flow cafeteria’ system, counters are segregated according to the type of dishes
offered—hot or cold, appetizers, soups, breads, sandwiches, entrées, salads, pastas and so
on.
Trays and other essential service equipment are kept on tables at convenient places. Guests
pick up trays and go to counters of their choice and select whatever dishes they want and
exit through the payment point at the entrance of the dining hall.
The counters are not arranged in a straight line, but in shapes such as hollow-square, U,
echelon or saw-tooth, and so on, depending on the number of dishes on offer and shape
and size of area available. However there are two main types of layout—hollow square and
echelon.
Hollow square:
Counters are placed around three sides of service area, each having counters of different
dishes

Echelon:
Counters are positioned at such angles that customers can flow within free flow area and
also to save space. A customer reaches the counter of his/her choice to help himself/herself.

The following points should be considered while positioning the counters of various
categories of dishes in free- flow system
 the flow of guests
 location of most preferred category of dishes,
 ease of replenishment specially to counters that are centrally located, and so on.

Free-flow Cafeteria Layout

Echelon (Saw-tooth) Cafeteria Layout

Counter Service

In this setup guests select the dishes they want to have from the menu displayed, buy
tokens, and collect dishes over the counter against the tokens. They may consume the
dishes either in the premises or get them packed as takeaway. Canteens, fast food outlets,
food courts, kiosks, and so on, follow this style.

Advantages
 Quick service
 Service skill not required
 Less staff required
 Low labour cost
 High seat turnover

Limitations
 No personalized service
 No scope for talented wait staff to show their skill.
Vending Machine

In this style, guests get the dishes from machines. Customers buy tokens or coins and insert
them into the vending machine and get whatever they wish to have by selecting appropriate
option. A wide variety of hot and cold dishes are available in this system. These are installed
in busy areas such as railways and bus stations, airports, schools, hospitals, etc.

Advantages
 Effective portion control
 Reduces labour
 Service is available throughout the day
 Good food cost control
 No wastage
 Hygienic
 Low cost of operation

Limitations
 Absence of interaction with guests
 Limited selection of dishes
 Unreliability
 Power dependence
 Not suitable for large-scale operations
 Calls for regular servicing during which period service is not available and leads to
customer dissatisfaction

Assisted Self-service

This is a combination of waiter and self-service. Service staff assist customers in service of
water, accompanying vegetables, sauces, sweets, and so on.
The following are the examples for assisted service:
1. Buffet
2. Carvery

Buffet
In buffet style of service, dishes are neatly displayed with garnish in the appropriate
containers and arranged attractively on the buffet table in a proper order for guests to help
themselves. The display has wide choice of both hot and cold dishes. Hot dishes are kept in
chafing dishes and the cold ones in glass/metal/wood containers.
Buffet can be broken into many sections such as soup, non-vegetarian, vegetarian, salads
and cold cuts, sweets, coffee/tea, etc. Each section has appropriate service equipment.
Carvings of ice, tallow, vegetable, fruits, and so on, may be used as the centre piece. Large
number of people can be served within a short duration of time. This type of service is
suitable for function catering. A lot of restaurants today favour this style of service for all
three meals.
There are three types of buffet
• sit down buffet
• fork buffet
• finger buffet
Sit down buffet
In sit down buffet, tables are laid with necessary cover. Customers select the dishes they
want to have from the buffet and eat at the table set with necessary cutlery and crockery.
Wait staff may help in the service of water, soup, sweet, and coffee and clear the table.
They may also extend any other assistance required by the guests.

Fork buffet
In fork buffet, customers are expected to stand and eat the food using only one piece of
cutlery, normally a fork. A few spoons may also be kept on the buffet. Dishes included in the
menu should be easily managed with one piece of cutlery. A few chairs may be available for
aged guests.

Finger buffet
In finger buffet, dishes are collected from the buffet and eaten with fingers. Dishes as
burgers, sandwiches, and so on, are ideal for finger buffet. A washing facility with hand drier
and napkin dispenser is essential.

Advantages of Buffet Service

• Service skill is not needed
• Less service staff
• Low labour cost
• More guests can be served in a short period of time

Limitations
• No personalized service
• Skilled wait staff may lose interest as it does not give them scope to demonstrate
service skills
• Dishes may lose eye-appeal after repeated servings
• Possible congestion
• Poor food control

Carvery

This style is practiced in large chain of hotels and restaurants. The basic concept is that the
roast joints are carved at the carvery counter and the customers help themselves
Carvery is open for luncheon and dinner and it also serves alcohol. Table d’hôte menu is
used in carvery which consists of three courses with a selection of starters, three or four
roast meats, and a selection of sweets. Waiters serve first and third courses, while guests
help themselves for roasts at the carvery counter having three or four varieties of roast
meat and poultry.

Service sequence at carvery

1. Guests are greeted
2. Guided to the table and seated by the service staff
3. Menu is presented
4. Water is served in the meantime
5. Preference for first course is taken
6. First course is served with necessary accompaniment
7. First course is cleared and accompaniment of the first course is taken away.
8. Guests are guided to carvery. They choose the meat and get their portion from carvery.
Collect accompanying vegetables and sauces and return to their tables
9. Bread and butter are placed on the table when the guests are at the carvery
10. Main course plate is cleared along with side plate
11. Bread and butter are taken away and cruets are removed
12. Crumbing is done
13. Menu is offered to take preference of guests for sweets
14. Cutlery for sweets is adjusted
15. Sweet is served by the service staff
16. Sweet is cleared
17. Coffee is served by the service staff

Advantages
 Carvery ensures hot main course as it is being carved in the presence of guests
 No wastage since customers take what they will be able to consume
 Effective marketing tool
 Guests feel more value for money since the meat, the main course of the meal,
carved in their presence is hot and they can choose the portion size
 As menu is limited, it needs smaller kitchen area and fewer production staff
 Not many service staff are required
 Less labour cost

Limitations
 Operation depends on a talented carver that costs money
 Portion control and pricing is difficult as guests help themselves to as much as they
want
 Retaining appearance and palatability of the pre-cooked joints may be difficult

Factors influencing styles of service

The style of food service implemented by an establishment will depend on a number of

interrelated factors. Some of them are :
 Type of establishment
 Location of establishment
 Time available for service
 Type of customers
 Service skills available
 Service area available
 Type of dishes to be served
 Turnover expected
 Service equipment available
Service styles and outlets where they are generally implemented

References
1. Singaraveelavan,R, R (2016)Food and Beverage Service,UK:Oxford University Press