The classification of catering industry is mainly formed for the convenience of restaurant evaluation and supervision, which can be roughly divided into five categories: tourist hotels, restaurants, buffet and box lunch industries, cold drinks industries and vendors. The important contents and characteristics of catering are described as follows.

I. Tourist hotels

The catering function of tourist hotels is the same as that of the hotels mentioned above.

Museums are the same. Tourist hotels can be divided into international tourist hotels and general tourist hotels. Among them, international tourist hotels not only provide accommodation for foreign tourists, but also attract a large number of local tourists with their elegant style, exquisite tableware, world food concept and perfect service. In addition, the hotel has a large space, complete equipment and high professional standards of staff, so it can also have other functions such as gourmet banquets, weddings, funerals and celebrations, exhibitions and conferences, give full play to the marginal utility of catering, and guide the popularity of catering trends.

Second, the restaurant.

A restaurant refers to a place where diners eat formally. General restaurants can be divided into Chinese restaurants and western restaurants according to different tastes of products, and their characteristics are as follows:

1, Chinese restaurant

China has a vast territory, many nationalities and different folk customs. It often shapes a variety of articles on the basis of geography, climate, customs, people's feelings, economy and other factors.

Personality has formed unique eating habits and wonderful cooking methods, such as "sweet in the south, salty in the north, spicy in the east and sour in the west"-each region has formed its own unique cuisine, including snacks and big dishes, such as Sichuan, Shandong, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hunan, Yunnan and Beijing.

2. Western restaurant

The definition of western restaurant refers to a restaurant that is westernized in decoration, caters to Europe and the United States, and mainly serves western-style services. For the convenience of a large number of consumers who are unfamiliar with western food, most western restaurants offer set meals, such as a meal and b meal, followed by soup, salad, main course, dessert and final drink. In order to attract more guests, some western restaurants even offer Chinese menus such as ribs rice and chicken leg rice for guests to choose from. So eating western food now is not the patent of the rich, and there is no special dining etiquette. Recreation is more important than dinner. At present, in addition to hotels and high-end steakhouses, the flavor of traditional western food is guaranteed, and the general western food has a different taste.

Third, buffet and fast food industry.

1, buffet

The purpose of buffet is to provide diversified diets with rich nutrition and low price for people who work and go to school outside. At present, self-service is not only widely used in schools, institutions and other groups, but also widely accepted by general commercial restaurants. Buffet has become a popular way to eat all over the world.

The prototype of cafeteria originated from YWCA in Kansa, Missouri, USA in 189 1. 1893, John R.Thompbom bought a restaurant in Chicago and successfully introduced this service concept. Customers choose their favorite food on the dining table, becoming the first cafeteria and the first restaurant to control food supply and demand by using electric conveyor belts and central distribution. 1926, he has 126 restaurants in the midwest and south. The key to its success is to reduce the labor cost to 15% of sales, which is far lower than other catering industries (20%-30%).

Buffet can be divided into two forms (such as table 1-2). One is that the guests take their own dishes at the dining table and then pay the bill according to the number of samples, which is called self-help; In English; The other is that guests can bring their own food, but you can eat as much as you want at a time. This is called buffet in English. Both modes are self-help or semi-self-help (the feed is provided by the waiter). In today's society with high labor costs, this service model is indeed an inevitable catering trend.

In the past, the dining tables in the cafeteria were all designed in a straight line (Figure 1-3). Customers enter from the same direction and wait patiently for the checkout after getting the food. At present, there are improved free-flowing dining table design (figure 1-4) and serrated dining table design (figure 1-5), which enable customers to cut into the food they need, which is extremely flexible, can reduce the hard work and time waste in queuing, improve customer satisfaction and improve the utilization rate of restaurants.

The "all you can eat" buffet launched in the 1970s greatly impacted the management mode of the catering industry. Consumers are no longer afraid to go to big hotels because they are not familiar with ordering skills, and they are not bound by the combination of packages. Therefore, this catering method is widely loved by consumers, especially in the last two or three years, and it has become the main catering business of major hotels.

2. Box lunch industry

The box lunch industry, also known as the fast food industry (called the box lunch industry in Taiwan Province Province), can be said to be a major catering feature of rice-based ethnic groups. With the change of lifestyle of urbanites, there are fewer and fewer lunches, and the fast food industry in metropolis is developing rapidly.

The main suppliers of box lunch are students, employees of factories and institutions and patients in hospitals, and the price ranges from 4 to 12 yuan at most. The color and nutrients of dishes vary according to the price, mainly including main courses (such as fried ribs and chicken legs), semi-meat dishes (eggs and shredded pork) and vegetarian dishes.