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This paper aims to examine diners’ luxury restaurant consumption behavior by incorporating diner expectations into a modified Mehrabian–Russell model. Consumers dine at luxury restaurants for reasons beyond fulfilling basic needs. However, little is known about the factors that contribute to diners’ emotions and loyalty toward luxury restaurants.

To examine the proposed six hypotheses, qualitative and quantitative studies were performed. Following exploratory qualitative research, 310 consumers who dined at Taiwan’s five-star hotel restaurants were recruited for the main study. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results show that restaurants’ stimuli influence diners’ positive and negative emotions (organisms), which, in turn, affect their loyalty toward luxury restaurants (responses). Furthermore, customers with different levels of expectation react differently to stimuli.

This study offers new empirical support for the proposition that diner expectation plays a role in building customer loyalty and, thereby, shades both theoretical and managerial understanding of the luxury restaurant consumption process.

This study conceptualizes diners’ loyalty toward luxury restaurants (e.g. revisiting and recommending luxury restaurants) by examining the influence of restaurants’ stimuli, diners’ emotions and customers’ expectations toward luxury restaurants. Additionally, this study offers some managerial implications for practitioners.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the effects of place attachment on brand loyalty. This study further ascertains whether the effects of emotion-based attachment on brand loyalty are stronger for customers who have a positive experience with a restaurant brand. Additionally, the authors investigate whether emotion-based attachment mediates the relationships between identity-based attachments, place dependence and brand loyalty in the restaurant setting.

The authors administered the questionnaire to customers (diners) of restaurants in Ghana, and they were completed via a paper and pencil/pen approach. The authors tested their hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The findings show that identity-based and emotion-based attachment enhances brand loyalty within a restaurant setting. The results also show that place dependence attachment promotes emotional bonding with restaurant brands. The study's findings also show that place dependence attachment does not have a direct and positive significant effect on brand loyalty except when an emotional response is produced.

Place attachment studies in a restaurant setting are rare. This study thus contributes to the place attachment literature in restaurants setting.

This study aims to examine whether indirect customer-to-customer interactions (CCI) affect consumers’ behavioral intentions and how that effect is generated. It also explores the effect of dining experience on customer behavioral intentions and how that effect varies by party type.

The research consists of an experimental survey-based study of n = 491 real-world consumers from a marketing research panel. Structural equation models are analyzed to examine hypothesized relationships.

Indirect CCIs significantly affect all five dimensions of experiential value. Food and beverage (F&B) excellence, aesthetics and service excellence positively affect customer revisit intentions and word-of-mouth intentions via restaurant image. Furthermore, party type moderates the effect of aesthetics on behavioral intentions so that the effect is significant for the social diner group only. Customer return on investment and playfulness show non-significant impacts on behavioral intentions.

Managers should be aware that indirect CCIs influence all aspects of the restaurant experience. Since F&B excellence, aesthetics and service excellence affect restaurant image and behavioral intentions, management can operationalize these elements of service. The impact of aesthetics differs by consumers’ party type, enabling management to create unique servicescapes based on their target customer segment.

The study pioneers an investigation of how indirect CCI is associated with behavioral intentions through the mediating effects of experiential value and restaurant image. It contributes to the literature by examining how the impact of diners’ experiences differs by party type.

This study aims to explore the role of restaurant experienscape in affecting diners' emotions and satisfaction with solo dining, considering the moderating role of solo dining willingness and public self-consciousness (PSC).

In total, 403 Korean customers who had dined alone at restaurants in the past three months participated in this study. Structural equation modeling, including multiple group analysis, was conducted to examine the hypotheses.

The dining atmosphere influenced solo diners' positive emotions but not their negative emotions. Responses from other guests and the interactional fairness of employees affected solo diners' negative emotions but not their positive emotions. Food sensory influences both positive and negative emotions. This study found that PSC significantly moderated the effect of the dining atmosphere on positive emotions, and solo dining willingness significantly moderated the impact of food sensory on positive emotions.

This study suggests that restaurant managers should pay close attention to providing fair service to all customers by training and educating employees because the unfair treatment that solo diners receive from employees affects focal customers' negative emotions.

The experienscape model was applied to the solo dining context based on Mehrabian and Russell's (1974) stimulus–organism–response paradigm and Pizam and Tasci's (2019) experienscape concept, which reflects the growing trend in solo dining.

This study aims to investigate how individuals’ regulatory focus affects perceived value and consumption emotions and how differently perceived value and emotions influence the future behavioral intentions of ethnic restaurant customers.

The proposed model was empirically tested with the online survey sent to frequent American travelers who have had dining experiences at Asian restaurants. A total of 435 valid responses were obtained and analyzed by means of structural equation modeling analysis.

The results indicated that promotion-focused individuals are more likely to perceive both hedonic and utilitarian values, and as a result experience positive emotions while dining at Asian restaurants. On the other hand, prevention focus was not significantly related to either hedonic or utilitarian values in itself, and it has a significant effect on negative emotions. The results also demonstrated that perceived hedonic and utilitarian values directly and/or indirectly influence behavioral intentions through consumption emotions.

This study contributes to existing knowledge on regulatory focus theory by identifying significant theoretical relationships among cognitive and affective consumption responses and regulatory focus. Specifically, the main contributions include suggesting novel perspectives that promotion focus is associated with consumers’ value perception, whereas prevention focus is not, and making a first attempt to discover a relationship between regulatory foci and two general types of consumption emotions (positive and negative emotions) and identifying theoretically important associations that promotion focus (vs prevention focus) is more strongly related to positive emotions (vs negative emotions).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic process and the meaning of symbolic consumption according to the three symbolic needs (i.e. status needs, social needs, status and social needs) to understand how symbolic messages are conveyed when consumers choose a brand.

This paper develops three dynamic models, categorized according to the consumers’ needs. The conceptual framework consists of the six constructs: collectivism/individualism, brand reputation, self-congruence, brand affect, brand identification and brand loyalty. Twelve hypotheses were developed and tested. Data were collected from consumers who had experienced well-known global chain restaurant brands. The three models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

Findings highlight the important mediating role of brand affect in symbolic consumption, which previously has not been revealed empirically. Moreover, it is found that self-congruence does not mediate the relationship between brand reputation, collectivism/individualism and brand affect, despite its prominence in previous symbolic consumption studies. In the status and social needs models, brand reputation mediates between collectivism/individualism and self-congruence, brand identification, brand affect and brand loyalty.

This is the first empirical paper to investigate symbolic consumption in the context of three types of models, according to symbolic needs, in the context of restaurant consumption. The study also identifies the major components of the consumer’s symbolic needs based on the attributes of symbolic consumption. Moreover, this study reveals that when both social needs and status needs are mixed, a hierarchy exists between consumers’ symbolic needs. Finally, the study makes an important contribution to the literature by applying the concept of brand affect to symbolic consumption research and exploring the relationships between the external motivational factors and the internal elements of symbolic consumption.

This study aims to examine the brand tourism effect observed in luxury hotels. The study assumed that when loyal customers of luxury hotels perceive two different types of non-loyal customers, loyal customers’ perceptions might influence their behavioral intention. In addition, two emotions (i.e. anger and pride) might mediate the relationship between perceptions and behavioral intention.

This study used a scenario-based experimental design. Data from 1,013 responses were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling.

The study reveals that when loyal customers view brand tourists, infringement has a positive influence on switching intention, and likability positively effects brand loyalty. This study indicated that loyal customers perceive brand immigrants negatively, whereas brand tourists are comparably positively perceived by loyal customers. Only pride mediates these two relationships, respectively.

The study confirmed the brand tourism effect in luxury hotels by indicating a clearer relation between perception, emotion and behavioral intention. The theoretical implications could suggest insightful guidelines for future studies regarding loyalty in luxury hotels.

This study aims to examine how cruise ship dinescapes, as a specific type of organized and staged service environment, influence customers’ attitudes, on-board behaviour, satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

Data was collected using a cross-sectional survey from 552 passengers on-board one of the big cruise ships with a Caribbean itinerary.

Cruise ship dinescape, as an on-board food experience platform, is built on three dimensions: restaurant atmospherics, interactions with other guests and restaurant staff. The findings show how these dimensions influence passengers’ emotional experiences and quality perceptions. The results also show how travellers’ cruise ship dinescape satisfaction affect their overall vacation satisfaction and future travel behaviour.

The findings imply that cruise companies should pay extra attention to organised food service environments like dinescapes staged for passengers. Through these scapes cruise companies may provide favourable platforms enabling dining satisfaction, but also social interaction and co-creation of memorable experiences.

This study builds a comprehensive model in cruise ship context, which links dinescape experiences to overall cruise ship dining experiences and dining behaviour mediated by emotional and perceived quality outcomes with further consequences.

Meal ordering apps (MOAs) have transformed the customers' dining habits, particularly during mobility restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the theoretical cover of the extended stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model, this paper attempts to explore the critical antecedents and outcomes of customer MOA engagement which predict the continuous purchase intentions using these apps. A multigroup analysis is conducted to investigate the difference between the hypothesized relationships between the Chinese and Indonesian consumers.

A mixed-method approach, including a systematic literature review, an open-ended essay (qualitative) with 139 MOA users and an online survey (quantitative) with 1,207 MOA users in total, was used for hypotheses testing.

The structural equation model results revealed that customer MOA experience factors such as mobile online reviews (MR), food quality (FQ), restaurant reputation (RR), service quality and system quality (SyQ) are the absolute positive factors that influence customer MOA cognitive, affective and behavioral engagement, which in turn affect continuous purchase intentions. The multigroup analysis results reveal that Chinese customers prioritized MR and FQ for customer MOA engagement (cognitive, affective and behavioral). Comparatively, Indonesian customers placed most importance on RR and SyQ.

Considering a market-specific setting and based on the extended SOR framework, this study is one of the first to take a comprehensive look at the critical antecedents and outcome of multidimensional customer MOA engagement in the developing countries’ (China and Indonesia) online to offline meal delivery context. Further, this study investigates the customer continuous purchase intentions as an outcome of MOA engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings also reveal the differences in consumer behavior across the two developing but culturally diverse countries samples during the pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine how different technological and cognitive cues related to mobile food ordering applications (MFOAs) impact diners' intentions to use MFOAs continuously. The moderating role of national household demographics was also assessed in the online-to-offline (O2O) food delivery services (FDS) context.

Drawing insights from the uses and gratification (U&G) theory, an online sample survey of 968 valid respondents who had ordered or purchased food through delivery apps during the COVID-19 outbreak in China was used for the analysis. The proposed model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling.

The results revealed that cues in MFOAs (i.e. ease of use, convenience, price saving orientation, the listing of various food choices, exploring restaurant patterns, and compatibility) directly influenced diners' e-satisfaction and that intention to use continuously is triggered by e-satisfaction during the COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, this study found that collectivist household diners emphasized ease of use, convenience, and compatibility. Comparatively, individualistic household diners placed more importance upon price saving orientation and listing of various food choices during the pandemic.

The authors offer a new insight into customers' dining choices by extending the scope of O2O services in the food industry. The findings contribute to understanding diners' purchase decision-making processes regarding MFOAs' O2O-FDS during the COVID-19 crisis. The multi-group comparison via national household demographics also provides a new perspective regarding different dining preferences toward O2O-FDS.