Serve food or beverages
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Performing General Physical Activities (4.A.3.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Serve meals, distribute commissary items, and dispense prescribed medication to prisoners.
- Serve orders to customers at windows, counters, or tables.
- Apportion and serve food to facility residents, employees, or patrons.
- Serve meals and snacks to employing families and their guests.
- Portion, arrange, and garnish food, and serve food to waiters or patrons.
- Complete orders from steam tables, placing food on plates and serving customers at tables or counters.
- Prepare and serve a variety of beverages, such as coffee, tea, and soft drinks.
- Serve wine, and bottled or draft beer.
- Serve food, beverages, or desserts to customers in such settings as take-out counters of restaurants or lunchrooms, business or industrial establishments, hotel rooms, and cars.
- Prepare or serve hot or cold beverages, such as coffee, espresso drinks, blended coffees, or teas.
- Serve food or beverages to patrons, and prepare or serve specialty dishes at tables as required.
- Perform serving, cleaning, or stocking duties in establishments, such as cafeterias or dining rooms, to facilitate customer service.
- Prepare and serve beverages, such as coffee or fountain drinks.
- Package take-out foods or serve food to customers.
- Serve snacks or food items to customers seated at the bar.
- Serve customers in eating places that specialize in fast service and inexpensive carry-out food.
- Serve prepared foods, such as muffins, biscotti, or bagels.
- Bring wine selections to tables with appropriate glasses, and pour the wines for customers.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Provide food or beverage services”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Arrange tables or dining areas | 5 |
| Collect dirty dishes or other tableware | 4 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.