Food Preparation and Serving Related
Fast Food and Counter Workers
Perform duties such as taking orders and serving food and beverages. Serve customers at counter or from a steam table. May take payment. May prepare food and beverages.
Also called: Cafe Server, Cafeteria Server, Cafeteria Worker, Counter Worker, Deli Worker (Delicatessen Worker), Dietary Aide
- Median pay in Greater Boston
- $36,290
- $17.45/hr
- Jobs in Greater Boston
- 60,130
- Massachusetts 2024–2034
- +5.6%
- 19,380 openings a year
- Typical U.S. entry requirement
- No formal educational credential
- plus Short-term on-the-job training
Greater Boston: Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro area, May 2025. Growth and openings: Massachusetts statewide projection.
Pay range in Greater Boston
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $31,520 | $34,210 | $36,290 | $37,260 | $39,440 |
10% of workers earn less than the first figure and 10% earn more than the last.
What you’d do
- Accept payment from customers, and make change as necessary.
- Serve customers in eating places that specialize in fast service and inexpensive carry-out food.
- Request and record customer orders, and compute bills, using cash registers, multi-counting machines, or pencil and paper.
- Balance receipts and payments in cash registers.
- Communicate with customers regarding orders, comments, and complaints.
- 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.
AI and this job
AI exposure: how much of this job’s work AI tools can do or help with, based on national research. It is not a forecast of job loss.
Lower exposure32 of 100
The index averages three national research measures, each shown as a percentile of all jobs:
- AIOE 33
- Language-model AIOE 38
- GPTs-are-GPTs 26
Observed AI use today: Little or none (Anthropic Economic Index)
AI exposure for this job is on the lower side, and observed AI use is little or none so far. AI tools are most likely to touch order taking, bill totals, payments, and cash register balancing. Serving people face to face, answering questions, handling complaints, and preparing food still rely on workers.
Likely to change
- Taking orders and totaling bills
- Accepting payment and balancing registers
Still relies on people
- Serving customers quickly and politely
- Handling complaints and special requests
Written with AI from the data on this page. Check with a career coach before making a decision.
Next steps from here
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- Pay difference
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Training near Boston
College and school programs in the Boston metro area that lead to this job, with 2023-24 completions (IPEDS).
No college programs near Boston map to this job. Many people enter through on-the-job training or apprenticeship.
Talk to a career coach at the Office of Workforce Development about apprenticeships and City partner programs.
Related occupations
Talk to a career coach
A coach at the Office of Workforce Development can help you plan your next step, and connect you with training, apprenticeships and City partner programs that are not listed here.
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