Cooks, Fast Food
Prepare and cook food in a fast food restaurant with a limited menu. Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally involve operating large-volume single-purpose cooking equipment.
641,070 people do this job in the US. $30,890 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 3%
- 0%
- 97%
Measured, from Anthropic's usage data (2025). Counts help on part of a task.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 4.4 h long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 1%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 3%. Today's estimate: 3%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
The tasks
Sorted by . 20 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clean, stock, and restock workstations and display cases.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 13% | 17 min8 min to 29 min | Stays with people | |
| Maintain sanitation, health, and safety standards in work areas.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 11% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Clean food preparation areas, cooking surfaces, and utensils.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 11% | 13 min4 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Cook and package batches of food, such as hamburgers or fried chicken, prepared to order or kept warm until sold.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 9% | 17 min8 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Operate large-volume cooking equipment, such as grills, deep-fat fryers, or griddles.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 7% | 10 min4 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Wash, cut, and prepare foods designated for cooking.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Cook the exact number of items ordered by each customer, working on several different orders simultaneously.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 7% | 8 min4 min to 17 min | Stays with people | |
| Pre-cook items, such as bacon, to prepare them for later use.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 5% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Prepare dough, following recipe.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 17 min8 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Order and take delivery of supplies.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Prepare specialty foods, such as pizzas, fish and chips, sandwiches, or tacos, following specific methods that usually require short preparation time.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 5 min3 min to 10 min | Stays with people | |
| Schedule activities and equipment use with managers, using information about daily menus to help coordinate cooking times.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 13 min4 min to 25 min | 100%Half by now |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).