English Lesson: Restaurant Vocabulary

I love going out to eat, and New York is a great city to live in if you enjoy eating out. There are lots of restaurants in all price ranges with food from all over the world. Today we will look at some English Vocabulary related to eating in restaurants. 

When you are in a hurry, you can eat at a fast food restaurant. There are lots of burger joints, pizza parlors, and even street vendors in NYC. When you go to a fast food restaurant, they may ask you, “Is that for here or to go?” For here means eat at the restaurant, to go means you’ll take the food somewhere else and eat it. In British English they use take away instead of to go.

When you are looking for something a bit more nutritious and fancy, there are plenty of good restaurants in the Big Apple. There are some restaurants which are buffet style. This means that for one price, you can help yourself to as much food as you like from the many trays and platters on display.  

For some of the busier and more popular restaurants, you’ll need to make reservations. After your meal, if you still have some food leftover, you can ask for a doggy bag. This means you will take home those leftovers. When the check comes, you’ll need to figure out how much of a tip you will leave. At a restaurant, the norm is 15~20%.

A lot of restaurants and bars have happy hour. When it is happy hour, drinks are heavily discounted, sometimes by 50%. Happy hour is generally from about 5pm to 7pm, but the times vary depending on the bar. Some bars also have lady’s night where women can drink for half price or free the whole night. I wonder why they do that…. 😉

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