Food Runners also has more than 100 volunteers on call.

Sorry I don't know what back waits (food runners and bussers) are.

Mr. Anzalone started working there as a food runner 20 years ago.

Few programs train workers in the skills they need to move up the ladder from food runner to busser to manager.

The food runner then delivers "warm" chips, "fresh" salsa and utensils.

Instead of waiters who take orders, it will have food runners who deliver orders to the tables.

The proprietor takes a roasted turkey from the oven, cuts off the legs and thighs, and puts them in a box marked "Food Runners."

"You have to be a top-notch sommelier, a top-notch waiter, a top-notch food runner.

At Sfuzzi he was a kitchen waiter and food runner, who assembled the food on plates in the kitchen and brought the meals to the dining room.

The menu lists 77 names, from Douglas Rodriguez, the executive chef, down to Jesus Pedroza, food runner, and Mano Garcia, coffee maker.

The food runners pause in confusion as they hesitate to ask (but then go ahead and do) who gets which dish, and they seem constantly to be warning of superhot plates.

"In Westchester during the summer we try and pick young guys and ladies who are really motivated and smart to become back waiters and food runners," Mr. Barber said.

He moved to San Francisco to become a food runner at Rubicon Restaurant, on encouragement from his wine instructor, after reading a magazine article about the restaurant's celebrity-sommelier Larry Stone.

Formerly open at the Westfield Annapolis Mall in Annapolis, Maryland, Punk's Backyard Grill is a fast casual style restaurant, with counter ordering and food runners and bussers.

BROADCAST ORDERERS who make a request from the waiter, then repeat the order to busboys or food runners, resulting in the same person getting more than one dish or drink.

"One woman we work with directs a group that prepares and delivers 400 meals a day to people with AIDS," said Mary Risley, who founded Tante Marie's Cooking School in San Francisco and started Food Runners a year ago with Alison Rodman, a local caterer.