In most of the US, a
cafeteria is a
restaurant in which the
customer walks past various display cases and
bain-maries or
steam tables, gathering
food on a reusable
tray and paying a
cashier.
These cafeterias are frequently found in public school dining halls. (When the room is dual-purpose, it may also be called a cafetorium.)
The same kind of arrangement is also found, albeit rarely, outside of schools. A few hundred Piccadilly Cafeterias in the American Southeast still offer cafeteria-style dining, according to piccadilly.com. When I was younger, going to "The Pick" at the mall on Friday night was a wonderful treat. Their macaroni and cheese, broccoli and okra were all so good! Yet here I am an adult, by many indicators, and I haven't been to the Piccadilly just a mile or two away from home. I guess it's family that makes the difference.
In Miami (and probably in Cuba, and possibly in other parts of Latin America), a cafetería (cah-feh-teh-REE-ah) is something else entirely. These are the jewels of Miami: small shops with a countertop accessible from the sidewalk where you can buy a jigger of cafe Cubano, the thick sweet Cuban coffee that makes crack look like chewing gum.
Accompany your cafecito (little coffee) with a guava pastry or a croquette or buttered toast, and you'll have enjoyed a tasty hot breakfast for a dollar or two. You can recognize a cafetería from a quarter-mile away not only by its architecture (a countertop protruding from inside a streetside shop, standing room only) but also by the bright orange Igloo of cold water, with its stack of conical cups, waiting to soften the blow of a Cuban coffee.