The dining experience: do restaurants satisfy customer needs?

Abstract

This is an exploratory paper where the main idea is to develop an analysis of dining as a multidimensional experience. In order to assess the relative importance of various aspects of restaurant services, customers were asked to estimate their willingness to pay for six aspects of the dining experience: food, service, fine cuisine, restaurant interior, good company and other customers. Customers were asked to evaluate an ideal restaurant experience as well as their latest restaurant experience. Thus the actual evaluation could be compared with an ideal value to explore where restaurants have opportunities to enhance customers’ restaurant experiences. Results clearly indicate that social needs are important for customers at evening restaurants whereas physiological needs dominate for customers at lunch restaurants.