What’s the difference between a cafe and a restaurant?

What’s the difference between a cafe and a restaurant? You might think it’s just semantics—you can eat in one or the other but not both, right?
The truth is that cafes and restaurants are built for different purposes. Cafes are designed to be informal places where people come to drink coffee, chat with friends, and maybe snack on some light fare such as pastries. Restaurants serve full meals, so they’re more formal. In many cases the two establishments share some of their cooking space (think of a bakery with seating), but this is not always the case; for example, if you go into Starbucks you will find no tables or chairs since customers are expected to grab their drinks quickly.
In either case, the atmosphere is different because cafes and restaurants have different expectations of their customers. A cafe is an extension of your home and lives up to that name; people visit a cafe to relax as they would if they were at home. In this sense, people go to a café to be with friends, talk and maybe even play games. A restaurant is seen as more of a short-lived event where you go in order to get something done, such as eating a meal or catching up on some work; it’s not typically a place you’d want to spend hours at. You likely won’t enter a restaurant and linger like you would at a café.
In terms of the food, a cafe’s offerings tend to be more limited since it is not as formal of an establishment. There are fewer courses on offer, so the food options are simpler and quicker to prepare. For example, you might see ham sandwiches and potato chips on the menu at a cafe while you would be hard pressed to find both at a restaurant. The food at restaurants tends to be more complex; chefs have more time to do their thing, so they can take more time in creating meals such as elaborate salads or pastas with multiple ingredients and sauces.
The other main differences between restaurants and cafes involve cleaning procedures. A cafe has a tiny crew which consists of one person often washing dishes and another that is either pulling pints or running coffee—there are no dishwashers, nor is there a lot of cleaning required since there are few guests. A restaurant, on the other hand, has a large team of employees who handle every aspect of the food production: boiling pasta, cutting fish for sandwiches or slicing tomatoes for salads. When you go to a restaurant you might see many different people cooking and preparing the food; it’s not uncommon for there to be three or four cooks in one kitchen!
On top of all this, restaurants often have playlists playing in the background which help create an atmosphere.