some cafeterias catering mainly to corporate customers and business visitors are very well run. for example, cafeterias at the cisco campus in san jose, oracle campus in redwood shores, and hp campus in palo alto. below is a pic of customer paying with credit card at a cafeteria. cafeterias located in corporate campuses are opened to the public. they offer discounts to employees of clustered corporations in the campus which may share a few cafeterias or a single corporation which rents its premise to cafeteria operators. the cafeteria operators are allowed to sell and cater food at full price to visitors and outsiders or anybody without a meal pass or employee pass. it's pretty much similar in europe. some companies have cafeterias that are closed to the public, as all employees with passes get "free" meals. google and facebook are examples of this closed system. however, as a visitor with a visitor pass, meals within such campus cafeterias are sometimes waived of charges depending on the employee escort. the google cafeteria runs thru' the night, and as an employee, you can have your free gourmet coffee, breakfast, lunch, and dinner within campus grounds. this keeps employees from wandering off outside campus during meal times, especially to castro street in mountain view where driving, parking and having lunch there can easily consume more than an hour.