canteen

The canteen of the Grundig radio works in Nuremberg in 1959

A canteen (of Italian cantina "bottle cellar") or in Switzerland , a staff restaurant is a restaurant within a company or a public institution , which the Board of employees with mainly warm meals in the work breaks , usually the lunch serving.

General

Temporal exceptions include a. Hospital or theater canteens. Component meals are often offered in canteens . As a rule, only employees and visitors to the company can visit the canteen. In many companies, canteen meals are subsidized for employees ; External persons usually have to pay a higher meal price. That is why canteens differ from the rest of the catering industry primarily in terms of the restricted access for guests. In the organizational structure of companies or authorities , canteens belong to the service points without the authority to issue instructions (so-called function-free support points).

The most important part of a canteen is the kitchen , in large companies the large kitchen . They are prepared for mass meals and have to cope with the rush of employees at lunchtime , although bottlenecks and the associated queues cannot be ruled out.

According to a study by the agricultural lobbying company CMA from October 2004, German canteens count 2.24 billion visitors per year and generate sales of 5.12 billion euros . A distinction must be made between whether the employer or the department operates the canteen themselves or transfers it to catering operators under a lease agreement .

Types of canteens

School canteens for pupils, teaching staff and employees are regionally and differently widespread in Germany, depending on the type of school , and are still largely nationwide, especially in Eastern Germany. In countries with compulsory all-day education such as France , the United Kingdom and the United States , the canteen is part of everyday school life and can be found in every school. The canteen at German and Austrian universities is called cafeteria , and this term is sometimes used for school canteens. In the barracks Hörsching, Upper Austria, the canteen was around 1985 for soldiers Soldateheim called strictly separated from the officers 'mess ( fair or officers' mess ) for rank higher, but also for the paramedic under the basic military servants. Canteen-like catering facilities, in which only drinks and snacks are served at less defined times , are also often called cafeteria , actually a name for a certain form of self-service restaurant . With the changeover to all-day school operations, more and more German schools have their own cafeteria. The term casino is also used at times.

A particularly large canteen on 10,000 square meters with 1,800 seats in 4 restaurants and 2 cafés for 4,000 lunches a day was opened on December 3, 2018 at the Praterstern in Vienna-Leopoldstadt in the Quartier Sechs / Austria Campus office complex .