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.
3,854,050 people do this job in the US. $31,200 a year.
of the working time. Estimate.
- 17%
- 0%
- 83%
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, 2%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 14%. Today's estimate: 15%.
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 . 27 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perform personnel activities, such as supervising and training employees.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 14% | 50 min17 min to 2.5 h | 87%Half by now | |
| Clean and organize eating, service, and kitchen areas.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 9% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Perform cleaning duties, such as sweeping, mopping, and washing dishes, to keep equipment and facilities sanitary.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 8% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Scrub and polish counters, steam tables, and other equipment, and clean glasses, dishes, and fountain equipment.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Set up dining areas for meals, and clear them following meals.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 7% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Plan, prepare, and deliver meals to individuals with special dietary needs.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 6% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Balance receipts and payments in cash registers.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Monitor and order supplies or food items, and restock as necessary to maintain inventory.Done daily by most who do it. | 6% | 21 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Prepare daily food items, and cook simple foods and beverages, such as sandwiches, salads, soups, pizza, or coffee, using proper safety precautions and sanitary measures.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 5% | 13 min4 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Wash dishes, glassware, and silverware after meals.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Collect and return dirty dishes to the kitchen for washing.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 8 min4 min to 17 min | Stays with people | |
| Distribute food to servers.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 8 min4 min to 17 min | Stays with people |
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).