FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS AS A GROUP OF INFRASTRUCTURAL OBJECTS OF RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY

Abstract

Abstract. The publication presents the results of research on the peculiarities of catering establishments ‒ a group of objects of the social infrastructure of recreational activities, which includes the groups “accommodation facilities”, “household service enterprises”, “retail trade enterprises”, “facilities and structures for cultural-mass events”, “facilities and structures for sports events”. The essence and understanding of the terms “public catering”, “restaurant management”, “food establishments” has been clarified. The selection of kinds of restaurant enterprises is systematized according to such characteristics as formulated by the author, such as production of products, nature of production, place of consumption of products, class of the establishment, assortment of sold products, methods of service, location and operation, accessibility for visits, contingent served, number of seats for visitors, operation mode during the day, operation mode throughout the year, mobility, variety of offered products and services. The classification of each of the main types of food establishments, such as restaurant, cafe, dining room, bar, diner, buffet, has been developed. Taking into account the materials of many different sources of information (normative-legal documents, scientific and popular-scientific literary sources, Internet-resources, first of all ‒ Wikipedia sites, etc.), a definition is given for each of the types of restaurant enterprises, types and kinds of food establishments and revealed their features. The author’s view of the differentiation of all selected kinds of food establishments according to the degree of their involvement in the recreational sphere into the following three groups is demonstrated: 1) partially, together with any other sphere of life-activity of society; 2) completely, only for the purpose of recreation; 3) actually not used. This division of institutions will have important practical significance in the future, especially when evaluating the development of their network in a certain territory. The features of such facilities as a tasting-room for amateur tastings, a nightclub, an anticafe, an Internet-cafe, which are classified as recreational infrastructure facilities, are formulated. Due to the author’s work (formulation of definitions of terms, classification, grouping, identification of features of institutions, etc.), the theoretical aspects of several concepts in both recreational and social geography in general have been developed.