{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/dining-room-and-cafeteria-attendants-and-bartender-helpers/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers", "soc_code": "35-9011", "category": "Food", "us_employment": 542750, "median_annual_wage": 33980 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 41, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 15, "embodiment": 17, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 5, "judgment_accountability": 3 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Stacking a bus tub of mixed china and stemware, spot-wiping a booth between seatings, and cutting fruit garnish during a rush are all tasks that require judging where things are and how much force to use in a room full of moving people — that's a 15 rather than an 18 because the ordering, tab-splitting, and tray-return steps around you have already been offloaded to kiosks and drop stations.", "embodiment": "You are on your feet a full shift on wet tile, reaching over occupied tables, carrying loaded trays through service doors, and handling broken glass and hot dish-machine racks — a 17 not 20 only because it's indoors on a known floor plan rather than outdoors or on unmapped sites.", "liability_shield": "No credential stands between you and replacement: at most a food handler card that costs an afternoon and a small fee, no scope of practice, and no state statute that says the bussing must be done by a licensed person, so the 1 reflects the ServSafe-style card existing at all.", "trust_premium": "A few regulars will notice who keeps their water full and cafeteria students learn one attendant's name, but the check is written to the restaurant and management can put a different person on your section tomorrow with no customer complaint — that's what holds it at 5 instead of a server's or bartender's higher relationship value.", "judgment_accountability": "Bus in this order, sanitizer at this concentration, wet-floor sign here, discard anything left uncovered — the calls you make are which table to hit first and when to flag a spill, which is real but bounded, and no decision of yours ends up in an incident report signed in your name." }, "rationale": "Almost nothing in this job is text or screen work: clearing and wiping tables, hauling bus tubs, restocking glassware and garnish trays, refilling water, mopping spills, and setting up cafeteria lines are physical tasks in crowded, unpredictable rooms that current robotics handles poorly. The real threat isn't language AI — it's business-model change: self-bussing fast-casual layouts, tray-return systems, kiosk ordering, and tray-delivery robots that let one attendant cover more floor. There is no license, no signature, and little discretion, so the only moat is embodiment, and that moat protects the task more than the headcount.", "outlook": "The tasks won't be automated away in ten years, but restaurant layouts and tray-return tech will keep squeezing how many attendants each dining room needs, so pay stays low and headcount drifts downward.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Nothing raises the physical difficulty itself, but the score can hold at its ceiling if restaurant layouts stay dense and unpredictable — e.g. if the fine-dining and full-service segment grows relative to fast-casual self-bussing, or if local fire/ADA aisle-width rules and crowded urban footprints keep tray-delivery robots (Bear Robotics/Pudu deployments) confined to wide-aisle chains. Watch for hotel and casino union contracts (UNITE HERE Local 11 in California) that cap robot use or require staffing ratios per covered section.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "If the tipped-service segment where guests visibly reward human floor presence expands — e.g. state elimination of the tip credit (DC Initiative 82, Chicago's One Fair Wage ordinance) pushing full-service restaurants toward higher-check, higher-touch formats where table maintenance by a person is part of the sold experience rather than a cost line", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Food-safety rules that name a trained person for sanitation tasks: if state adoption of FDA Food Code provisions on certified food protection managers is extended so that surface-sanitizing, allergen cleaning between seatings, and glassware handling must be performed or verified by a ServSafe-certified employee — not a machine cycle — the busser role acquires a documented, auditable sign-off", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If dram-shop liability enforcement pushes bars to make barbacks and floor staff part of the documented over-service and ID-check chain (state responsible-beverage-service mandates, e.g. Texas TABC or Utah training requirements applied to all bar personnel, not just servers), the role starts owning intervention calls on visibly intoxicated guests", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier shift is weak here: when tray return and self-bussing remove the routine clearing tier, what remains is more physical exception work (spills, broken glass, unstable guests) but not a protected judgment tier — headcount falls rather than the remaining job hardening", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling is low-to-mid 50s. Embodiment is already near max and cannot rise further; the threat is headcount compression through layout and business-model change, which no dimension on this register captures. Liability and judgment gains would attach mainly to the bar-adjacent and hotel-union slices of the occupation, not to cafeteria attendants." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 436730, "wage": 21160 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 455700, "wage": 22270 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 477270, "wage": 23470 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 374940, "wage": 25010 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 336970, "wage": 27170 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 439770, "wage": 29120 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 483390, "wage": 31180 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 522010, "wage": 32670 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 542750, "wage": 33980 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 24.3, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "maids-and-housekeeping-cleaners", "title": "Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 54, "median_wage": 35510, "overlap": 84, "skills_to_close": [ "Time Management" ] }, { "slug": "cooks-restaurant", "title": "Cooks, Restaurant", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 57, "median_wage": 37390, "overlap": 82, "skills_to_close": [ "Equipment Selection", "Time Management", "Active Learning", "Operation and Control" ] }, { "slug": "butchers-and-meat-cutters", "title": "Butchers and Meat Cutters", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 51, "median_wage": 40140, "overlap": 81, "skills_to_close": [ "Complex Problem Solving", "Negotiation", "Persuasion", "Time Management" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }