This article examines food service meetings of Hispanic service providers and Anglo-American and Hispanic customers in intercultural communication environs, exploring whether or not Anglo-Americans and Hispanics take distinct stances during requests. Employing participant and non-participant observation of 350 naturally occurring interaction, two stancetaking types were assayed: transactional and friendly. The former constituted the majority across both customer groups, as the interlocutors were chiefly oriented to the interaction's transactional aims. The latter were more frequent amid Hispanic customers and American females, though the proportion of these customer groups was small in comparison with the proportion of Anglo-American customers and American males especially. The article offers empirical evidence for positioning stancetaking as a pivotal activity in intercultural communication environs.