Occupation / job
Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers pays $33,980 against $50,020 for the typical American job — $16,040 a year, or $7.71 an hour, of difference. A gap that size has to be worth something to you that is not money, and it has to keep being worth it.
542,750 people work as Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers — large enough that the occupation is always hiring somewhere and always losing people somewhere else. Constant demand is security; it is rarely leverage.
These roles are the entry point to the whole food sector and suit people who want work that starts this week and teaches the operation from the inside.
We carry no verified training length for Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers earn under $28,330 and a quarter over $37,250: 1.3x, and $8,920 between the ends. That is a narrow band — enough room to be paid better than average, not enough for the occupation to be a route to a materially different income.
The bottom quarter is under $28,330, $21,690 short of the $50,020 typical American job. The question worth answering before entering Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers is how long people spend in that quarter, because the median says nothing about it.
Avoid it if you need a path upward that does not depend entirely on one manager deciding to promote you.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 542,750 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A 1.3x spread means the top quarter of Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers is not doing a different job from the bottom quarter, just a slightly better-paid version of the same one. Between $28,330 and $37,250 is the whole of the negotiation.
In cash terms the middle half of Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers runs $28,330 to $37,250 — $8,920 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $33,980.
Getting to $37,250, the 75th percentile, is worth $3,270 a year more than the $33,980 midpoint and $8,920 more than the $28,330 a quarter of Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers settle for.
The midpoint sits high inside its own range: $5,650 above the $28,330 bottom quarter but only $3,270 below the $37,250 top quarter. Most of the distance in Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers is spent climbing out of the bottom, and once you are past the middle there is not much further to go.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers is $16.33 an hour. The quarters sit at $13.62 and $17.90, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $33,980 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $33,980 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else