Greenville SC Dining offers many different styles of restaurants in Greenville SC
Casual Style
A casual dining restaurant is a restaurant that serves moderately-priced food in a casual atmosphere. Except for buffet-style restaurants, casual dining restaurants 
typically provide table service. Casual dining comprises a market segment between fast food establishments and fine dining restaurants.[1]
Casual dining restaurants usually have a full bar with separate bar staff, a larger beer menu and a limited wine menu. They are frequently, but not necessarily, part of a wider chain, particularly in the United States.
Entrepreneur Norman Brinker was the “father” of casual dining.[2]
Family style
Family style restaurants are restaurants that have a fixed menu and fixed price, usually with diners seated at a communal table such as on bench seats. True to their name, these restaurants tend to be single-family businesses.
Fast food
Fast food restaurants emphasize speed of service. Operations range from small-scale street vendors with carts to franchised mega-corporations like McDonald’s.
Fast casual restaurants do not offer table service, but may offer non-disposable plates and cutlery. The quality of food, and price point, are higher than those of a conventional fast food restaurant.
Fine dining
Fine dining restaurants are full service restaurants with specific dedicated meal courses. Décor of such restaurants feature higher quality materials with an eye towards the “atmosphere” desired by the restaurateur. The wait staff is usually highly trained and often wears more formal attire. Fine-dining restaurants are almost always small businesses and are generally either single-location operations or have just a few locations. Food portions are smaller but more visually appealing. Fine dining restaurants have certain rules of dining which must be followed by visitors.[3]
Variations
Most of these establishments can be considered subtypes of fast casual dining restaurants or casual dining restaurants.
Bistro and brasserie
In France, a brasserie is a café doubling as a restaurant and serving single dishes and other meals in a relaxed setting. A bistro is a familiar name for a café serving moderately priced simple meals in an unpretentious setting, especially in Paris; bistros have become increasingly popular with tourists. When used in English, the term bistro usually indicates either a fast casual dining restaurant with a European-influenced menu or a cafés with a larger menu of food.
Buffet and smörgåsbord
Buffets and smörgåsbord offer patrons a selection of food at a fixed price. Food is served on trays around bars, from which customers with plates serve themselves. The selection can be modest or very extensive, with the more elaborate menus divided into categories such as salad, soup, appetizers, hot entrées, cold entrées, and dessert and fruit. Often the range of cuisine can be eclectic, while other restaurants focus on a specific type, such as home-cooking, Chinese, Indian, or Swedish. The role of the waiter or waitress in this case is relegated to removal of finished plates, and sometimes the ordering and refill of drinks.
In the United States, Buffets, Inc., is a large buffet chain corporation which owns Old Country Buffet, Country Buffet, and HomeTown Buffet. HomeTown Buffet popularized the “scatter buffet”, which refers to the layout of separate food pavilions. Other American restaurant chains well-known for their buffets include Golden Corral, which features food products presented in pans, Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes (known in particular for its soups and salads), Gatti’s Pizza, CiCi’s Pizza, Fresh Choice (a smaller competitor of Souplantation), Pancho’s Mexican Buffet, Ryan’s and Ponderosa Steakhouse. Sizzler is another prominent restaurant offering a buffet.
Café
Cafés and coffee shops are informal restaurants offering a range of hot meals and made-to-order sandwiches. Many cafés are open for breakfast and serve full hot breakfasts. In some areas cafés offer outdoor seating. The major difference with a café and most other casual dining establishments is how the guest orders and pays. A café can offer table service, but many times the guest orders at the front, and the food is brought out to the table. Then, while at most casual dining restaurants the guest pays with the server, at a café the guest most often times pays with a single cashier.
Cafeteria
A cafeteria is a restaurant serving ready-cooked food arranged behind a food-serving counter. There is little or no table service. Typically, a patron takes a tray and pushes it along a track in front of the counter. Depending on the establishment, servings may be ordered from attendants, selected as ready-made portions already on plates, or self-serve their own portions.
In the UK, a cafeteria may also offer a large selection of hot food similar to the American fast casual restaurant, and the use of the term cafeteria is deprecated in favour of self-service restaurant.
Coffeehouse
Coffeehouses are casual restaurants without table service that emphasize coffee and other beverages; typically a limited selection of cold foods such as pastries and perhaps sandwiches are offered as well. Their distinguishing feature is that they allow patrons to relax and socialize on their premises for long periods of time without pressure to leave promptly after eating, and are thus frequently chosen as sites for meetings.
Destination restaurant
A destination restaurant is one that has a strong enough appeal to draw customers from beyond its community.[4]
Information provided by www.wikipedia.org
