What is the difference between

食堂

レストラン

料理店

料理屋

飲食店
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word-choice
What is the difference between 食堂 , レストラン, 料理店, 料理屋 and 飲食店?
I've never heard the 3rd and 4th of those options in normal Japanese speech,
so the difference between those and the other 3 is that the other 3 exist and
those 2 do not (at least not in any capacity). As for the others:

食堂 translates most directly as "cafeteria" or "food court". While it can be
used for restaurants, it tends not to be, and the restaurants which do use it
tend to be similar in style/scope to what a Westerner might call a "diner" (in
fact, the Netflix show 深夜食堂 was translated in English as Midnight Diner, which
lends more credence to this reading). The most common usage for 食堂 though, is
most certainly a school cafeteria or a food court e.g. in a shopping mall or
other public venue.

レストラン and 飲食店 are pretty much the same thing. The difference being that レストラン
is a Japanese 外来語 from the English "restaurant", while 飲食店 is the pure-
Japanese word. In my experience, レストラン is more commonly used, although also
I'm a Westerner and therefore more prone to hearing/using that word. 飲食店 feels
a lot like, "this restaurant wants to present an image of being authentic
Japanese so they use the Japanese word instead of the foreign word", but
otherwise there is no difference, to my knowledge.
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I encountered the term 料理屋さん when people were referring to a person or shop as
a means of describing what they do rather than the specific type of food or
cooking style.

In my prefecture there were several shops which referred to themselves as
満腹食堂. They typically served large portions of reasonable or good quality food
at moderate prices. They did not fit into the cafeteria image, but perhaps
somewhat like the 'diner' image mentioned in Ertai's answer.

You will encounter more ways to describe eating and drinking establishments. I
found that looking the words up in Japanese-Japanese dictionaries gives much
more detail about the nuances than using Japanese-English dictionaries.
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* **食堂** : A dining hall, a (large) dining room (of a mansion/hotel), a cafeteria (of an office/school), a cheap restaurant (which one may go to every day). Cheap restaurants are also called 大衆食堂 ([image search](https://search.yahoo.co.jp/image/search?p=%E5%A4%A7%E8%A1%86%E9%A3%9F%E5%A0%82)). American diners are often introduced as アメリカの大衆食堂.
  * **レストラン** : Typically, unless otherwise specified, a Western-style restaurant that serves Western food. レストラン at least have waiters, and fast food restaurants are usually not considered レストラン. Some レストラン are very expensive, but ファミリーレストラン ([image search](https://search.yahoo.co.jp/image/search?p=%E3%83%95%E3%82%A1%E3%83%9F%E3%83%AC%E3%82%B9), ファミレス for short) are relatively casual and often serve Japanese food as well as Western food. In anime, you can often see high school students gathering at a ファミレス.
  * **料理店** : Small restaurants that offer traditional cuisine at a relatively high price point tend to be called 料理店. If we just say 料理店, it refers to Japanese restaurants, but there are also インド料理店, メキシコ料理店, etc. A (日本)料理店 ([image search](https://search.yahoo.co.jp/image/search?p=%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%96%99%E7%90%86%E5%BA%97)) is not very different from izakaya, but 料理店 sounds more quiet and expensive to me (if not as expensive as [料亭](https://savorjapan.com/contents/discover-oishii-japan/ryotei-and-kappo-restaurants-even-japanese-would-struggle-to-differentiate-and-where-to-find-them/)). 料理屋 is a synonym that sounds relatively informal. In particular, 小料理屋 ([image search](https://search.yahoo.co.jp/image/search?p=%E5%B0%8F%E6%96%99%E7%90%86%E5%B1%8B)) typically refers to tiny izakaya-type restaurants that are privately owned and only have counter seats.
  * **飲食店** : A catch-all term for everything above as well as bars, café, fast food restaurants, bubble tea shops, etc. This is more of a business/legal term. We see it a lot in news articles (especially during this COVID crisis), but ordinary people don't need to use it often in everyday conversation.
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