If you walk into any restaurant or place where they serve food you will find there are a few things that are common for all. For most of them, there is a restaurant uniform that the staff wears. In some cases it is a very formal uniform and in other cases it is a bit more casual but still restaurant staff uniforms are the norm in just about every place that you eat at. It is a public service type thing. When you see someone in a restaurant you want to see that they truly work for the restaurant and hence the reason for the uniforms. Plus these tend to keep all the messes off of street clothes. It is just a product of the industry that food and drink gets spilled.
When you want to know why it is important to have restaurant staff uniforms start with the fact that it does save your other clothes from getting totally messed up. It does give the public a feeling of confidence that they are being dealt with by legitimate employees. They also have a tendency to distinguish between types of restaurant jobs. Depending on the role in the restaurant the outfit might be very different. It gives a sort of pecking order for you as the patron to know who is who and what the roles are for each employee.
Most people in service industry jobs have to wear some type of uniform. The restaurant staff uniforms might have the employee name on it and in some cases it will not. It is totally up to the preference of the restaurant if names are included. Restaurant staff uniforms will tend to have them more times than not at least when you are dealing with the public in the front of the house and the cooks like to have them on in the back. So all in all, most staff will have them. The hostess is the one position that might be able to wear what they want as can the manager of the shop.
The two main types of restaurant staff uniforms as stated before are the front end and the kitchen end of the house. The uniforms for each are decidedly different and will have to be based on the appearance you are trying to give. If the kitchen staff is rarely out of the back they can be in simple whites, if they come out to prepare foods at tables they would be dressed a different way. As far as the front of the house the restaurant staff uniforms vary based on the atmosphere you are trying to establish for the restaurant. Sometimes it is based on the type of food served and other times it is based on the casual or formal atmosphere of the establishment itself.
Depending on the restaurant you will have different uniforms. Restaurant staff uniforms can be purchased in many places and where you go for them depends on what you are trying to accomplish. You will be able to find just about anything online though.