{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/hosts-and-hostesses-restaurant-lounge-and-coffee-shop/", "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": "Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop", "soc_code": "35-9031", "category": "Food", "us_employment": 432690, "median_annual_wage": 31200 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 37, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 10, "embodiment": 14, "liability_shield": 0, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 5 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Reservation intake, wait-time quoting, and waitlist paging are already fully productised, but seating a party of six with a stroller in a room where two tables are half-bussed and a server section is drowning is still a live judgment made by walking the floor — the split between those two halves is what puts this at 10 rather than 4.", "embodiment": "You are on your feet the whole shift in an uncontrolled space — squeezing between occupied chairs, carrying highchairs and menus, wiping and resetting tables during a rush, working around spills, door traffic, and guests who move unpredictably — which is the same physical unpredictability that keeps 14 out of reach of any current machine.", "liability_shield": "No state licence, no certification, no exam gates this job; a food-handler card at most in some jurisdictions, and nothing you do at the podium creates personal legal exposure that a manager doesn't own — hence 0.", "trust_premium": "Regulars get recognised and neighbourhood spots do build a face people come back for, but the vast majority of guests will never learn your name and would be seated identically by whoever else is on the podium, which caps this at 8 rather than the 13+ of a job where the relationship is the reason for the visit.", "judgment_accountability": "Seating rotation, party-size rules, and quoted wait times run off manager-set procedure and the table chart; the discretion you do exercise — bumping a party, holding a booth, calming someone at 40 minutes — is real but reversible and low-stakes, which is a 5 and not a 12." }, "rationale": "The information half of this job — taking reservations, quoting wait times, managing the waitlist, texting guests when a table opens, tracking table status — is already handled by OpenTable, Yelp Waitlist, and QR-code check-in, and that displacement is happening now. The greeting, escorting, menu handoff, and on-the-floor reading of a crowded dining room still require a body in the room, and at $14/hour the payback on replacing that body with a robot is nonexistent. What shrinks is headcount per shift, as one host covers what two used to and the tablet absorbs the rest.", "outlook": "The role persists in full-service and upscale dining as a greeter-plus-floor-coordinator, but fast-casual and mid-tier chains keep folding the position into QR check-in and server duties, so total headcount drifts down through the 2030s.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Fine-dining and hospitality-brand segments that explicitly market a human greeting — e.g. Michelin/Forbes Travel Guide service standards that score 'personal greeting by name within 30 seconds' and penalize kiosk check-in — expanding as a differentiator as mid-market restaurants go tablet-only. If graded human-greeting standards become a marketing requirement in a larger share of covers, this rises modestly.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: once reservations, wait-time quotes, waitlist texting and table-status tracking are fully absorbed by OpenTable/SevenRooms, the residual role is the judgment tier — VIP and regular recognition, seating-chart triage during a rush, absorbing complaints before they reach a manager, pacing seats to kitchen capacity. The job that remains is harder to automate than the average of the job today, even as headcount falls.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal absorption of front-of-house duties currently held by managers: ID/age verification at bar entry, refusal of service, occupancy and fire-code headcount at the door, and allergen intake questions logged at seating. Where state alcohol boards or FDA Food Code allergen-disclosure adoption push the point of first contact to the host stand, the role owns consequential calls.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 } ], "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling is low-to-mid 40s. There is no licensure route — no jurisdiction licenses hosts, so liability_shield stays at 0 and the largest available lever is closed. The trust premium is real but confined to a small high-end segment; for the diner-and-chain majority it is not recoverable. Even where scores rise, they rise for a shrinking number of positions per shift." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 414540, "wage": 20930 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 416950, "wage": 22160 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 423380, "wage": 23090 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 316700, "wage": 23880 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 324690, "wage": 24600 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 400420, "wage": 27720 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 425020, "wage": 29220 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 427150, "wage": 30380 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 432690, "wage": 31200 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 4.4, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "waiters-and-waitresses", "title": "Waiters and Waitresses", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 49, "median_wage": 35230, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Complex Problem Solving", "Judgment and Decision Making", "Management of Material Resources" ] }, { "slug": "cooks-short-order", "title": "Cooks, Short Order", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 47, "median_wage": 35880, "overlap": 81, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Material Resources", "Operation and Control", "Complex Problem Solving", "Management of Financial Resources" ] }, { "slug": "maids-and-housekeeping-cleaners", "title": "Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 54, "median_wage": 35510, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Material Resources", "Troubleshooting", "Management of Financial Resources" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }