Were there restaurants or cafes in the Soviet Union?

by babyredpandas

I’m interested in any period of Soviet history, especially 1970-1991.

Did the Soviet Union have much in the way of restaurants? How did people get a job working in a restaurant as, say, a waiter? What would a waiter be making compared to, say, a doctor or an engineer? Was it really expensive to eat in restaurants, compared to today?

kaiser_matias

This is a little different than your question, but I have written about ethnic restaurants in the Soviet Union.