A cafeteria or cafetera is a kind of food service location in which there's not much or no table service, whether a cafe or inside an establishment like a giant office building or college; a college dining location is also called a dining hall or canteen. Refectories are dissimilar from coffeehouses, though that's the Spanish meaning of the English word. Rather than table service, there are food-serving counters/stalls, either in a line or permitting capricious walking trails. Patrons take the food they need as they walk along, putting it on a tray.

Additionally, there are frequently stations where consumers order food and wait even though it is prepared, especially for items like hamburgers or tacos which has got to be served hot and can be quickly prepared. Otherwise, the patron is given a number and the item is brought to their table. Infrequently, for some food items and drinks, purchasers collect an empty container, pay at the check-out, and fill the container after the check-out. Free second servings are commonly authorized under this system. For legal purposes (and the consumption patterns of buyers), this system is never utilized for alcoholic drinks. Consumers are either charged a fixed rate for admission (as in a smorgasbord), or pay at the check-out for each item. Some self-service cafes charge by the weight of items on a patron's plate.

As refectories need few workers, they're frequently found inside a larger establishment, catering for the customers of that institution. As an example, colleges, schools and their residence halls, malls, hospices, museums, army bases, jails, and office buildings frequently have refectories.

These establishments went into a decline in the 1960s with the upward thrust of fast food and were mostly finished in the 1980s by the increase of "casual dining". Some chains significantly continue to fill some of the opening left by the fall of the older chains.