Unpredictable Bar and Grille: It’s Got Nothing to Do With Food An Exploratory Study of the Subculture of Restaurant Workers

This study focuses on restaurant workers as a social group. A major objective of this research is to empirically demonstrate the existence and components of a unique restaurant worker subculture. Components of the subculture consist of subcultural implications, including indicators such as hours and turnover, and subcultural customs, especially workers’ carousing habits. Other factors important in creating the subculture are teamwork, work as performance, and the company’s role in the development and maintenance of the subculture. The theoretical backdrop of the thesis stems from Erving Goffman’s discussions of teams and dramaturgy.

Data were collected using a multi-method approach: survey distribution, interviews, and participant observation. This combination of data collection procedures provides an extensive amount of information that is useful for an exploratory analysis of the subculture of restaurant workers.