1. A restaurant in which the customers are served at a counter and carry their meals on trays to tables.
2. A dining area, as at a school or office building, where meals may be purchased or brought from home and eaten.

[Spanish cafetería, coffee shop, cafeteria, from café, coffee, from Ottoman Turkish qahveh. See coffee.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.