Lunch lady · cafeteria lady · dinner lady · cafeteria assistant · food service worker · lunch assistant · school chef · school cook. The lunch lady, in Canada and the United States, is a term for a woman who cooks and serves food in a school cafeteria. The equivalent term in the United Kingdom is dinner lady. The role is also sometimes referred to as the lady of the cafeteria.
Sometimes, a waitress also patrols school playgrounds during meal breaks to help maintain order. No formal education is required to work in a school cafeteria, but certifications (such as a safe food handling certification) could help a lunch assistant get a raise or promotion. A school meal assistant, commonly called a waitress, prepares and serves food to students in public and private elementary and secondary schools, as well as in university cafeterias. Coffee shop workers serve breakfast and lunch to school-age children during the school year and sometimes during the summer, when federal programs fund meals for children from economically disadvantaged families.
Children don't line up to eat thinking about the long-term repercussions of their food choices (health, planet, animals, etc.) With this in mind, analyzing salary data from a state's 25th percentile can provide a better estimate of the average salary of a school waitress.
