---
title: "Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendant and Bartender Helper"
description: "Facilitate food service. Clean tables; remove dirty dishes; replace soiled table linens; set tables; replenish supply of clean linens, silverware…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/dining-room-and-cafeteria-attendant-and-bartender-helper"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendant and Bartender Helper

**Category:** Food Preparation and Serving Related · **SOC code:** 35-9011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 35-9011.00

Facilitate food service. Clean tables; remove dirty dishes; replace soiled table linens; set tables; replenish supply of clean linens, silverware, glassware, and dishes; supply service bar with food; and serve items such as water, condiments, and coffee to patrons.

Also advertised as: Barback; Buffet Attendant; Bus Boy; Bus Person; Busser; Dining Room Attendant; Food Service Aide; Food Service Helper.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $33,980 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $16.34/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $21,300 to $46,570, with the middle half between $28,330 and $37,250
- **Total US employment:** 542,750
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +6.3% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 99,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 60/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 542,750 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $21,300 |
| 25th | $28,330 |
| 50th (median) | $33,980 |
| 75th | $37,250 |
| 90th | $46,570 |
| Mean (average) | $34,230 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| VI | $51,760 | No BEA price parity | 70 |
| HI | $51,200 | $46,566 | 4,380 |
| WA | $41,420 | $38,706 | 6,160 |
| DC | $39,080 | $35,559 | 4,130 |
| ME | $38,560 | $39,732 | 1,540 |
| MD | $37,020 | $35,271 | 13,240 |
| OR | $36,800 | $35,603 | 3,910 |
| CO | $36,790 | $35,700 | 8,460 |
| NY | $36,740 | $34,043 | 41,340 |
| AZ | $36,500 | $36,255 | 13,300 |
| CA | $36,010 | $32,523 | 75,460 |
| MA | $35,380 | $33,454 | 11,510 |
| CT | $34,540 | $33,337 | 5,810 |
| NJ | $34,170 | $31,405 | 16,490 |
| VT | $34,120 | $34,831 | Not published by BLS |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/dining-room-and-cafeteria-attendant-and-bartender-helper/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/dining-room-and-cafeteria-attendant-and-bartender-helper.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 527,400 in the 2024–2034 base year to 560,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 33,100 jobs, or +6.3%. Much faster than average: 6.3% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 99,600 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 74.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 22.4% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 2.5% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 1.1% |

## What the work involves

- Maintain adequate supplies of items, such as clean linens, silverware, glassware, dishes, or trays.
- Clean up spilled food or drink or broken dishes and remove empty bottles and trash.
- Wipe tables or seats with dampened cloths or replace dirty tablecloths.
- Locate items requested by customers.
- Fill beverage or ice dispensers.
- Clean and polish counters, shelves, walls, furniture, or equipment in food service areas or other areas of restaurants and mop or vacuum floors.
- Set tables with clean linens, condiments, or other supplies.
- Perform serving, cleaning, or stocking duties in establishments, such as cafeterias or dining rooms, to facilitate customer service.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Food Production — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Trunk Strength — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Stamina — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.63 |
| C — Conventional | 4.57 |
| S — Social | 3.66 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.26 |
| A — Artistic | 1.02 |
| I — Investigative | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 83.2 |
| ESTJ | 75.9 |
| ISTJ | 75.6 |
| ESFJ | 75.2 |
| ESTP | 56.4 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Food Server, Nonrestaurant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-server-nonrestaurant) — median $35,360
- [Fast Food and Counter Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fast-food-and-counter-worker) — median $31,200
- [Server](https://nuecareer.com/careers/server) — median $35,230
- [Food Preparation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-preparation-worker) — median $35,320
- [Host and Hostess, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop](https://nuecareer.com/careers/host-and-hostess-restaurant-lounge-and-coffee-shop) — median $31,200
- [Barista](https://nuecareer.com/careers/barista) — median $31,200
- [Dishwasher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dishwasher) — median $34,810
- [Maid and Housekeeping Cleaner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/maid-and-housekeeping-cleaner) — median $35,510
- [Bartender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bartender) — median $34,340
- [Cook, Short Order](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-short-order) — median $35,880

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/dining-room-and-cafeteria-attendant-and-bartender-helper