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The use of modern technologies in restaurants has become a trend. For food and beverage services, embracing new technologies helps solve the dilemmas of increasing labor costs and the high level of staff turnover in the industry. However, knowledge regarding how consumers perceive and evaluate technology-assisted dining experiences (TADEs) is limited. This study aims to conceptualize and operationalize TADEs while considering increasing technological applications in restaurants.

This study conducted in-depth interviews with 71 restaurant consumers in Nanjing and Wuhan, China. Following the interviews, this study carried out a survey and identified the factor structure of TADEs.

The in-depth interviews identified 26 attributes of TADEs. An analysis of the survey data identified four important aspects (with 21 items) of TADEs, namely, novelty and fashion, convenience, high efficiency and restrictions and possible risks.

Hospitality managers can implement the suggested measures for dining service design and technology management to improve the experiences of customers.

These findings have theoretical implications for the new phenomenon of technology-integrated dining, the application of technology and consumer management in the catering industry.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the presence of other customers in restaurant social settings becomes a resource (referred to as “customer-to-customer interaction” or “C2CI”) to co-create an escape dining experience and stimulate dining outcomes, namely, food attachment and dining frequency. The relationships are further tested under the effects of regional economic conditions.

Data were collected by using a multi-step approach. The first data set was obtained through a personally administered survey, which included a sample of 356 Chinese tourists who dined at fine Western (i.e. Portuguese) restaurants in Macau. The second data set concerned economic statistics and was obtained from the statistics departments of mainland China and Taiwan. A multilevel design with hierarchical linear modeling was used to test the proposed model. Multilevel mediating and moderating effects were also examined.

The results suggest that customer escape dining experience significantly mediated the relationship between C2CI and food attachment, while food attachment fully mediated the relationship between customer escape experience and dining frequency. The multilevel effect of regional economic conditions played a significant role in moderating the C2CI–escape experience relationship in which the effect of C2CI was more salient for tourists from less economically developed regions in China. The experience–food attachment relationship was also contingent on the regional economic conditions in which the relationship was stronger for tourists from less economically developed areas. A multilevel mediating effect was also presented in the study.

The study contributes to the literature on experience co-creation in restaurant dining by exploring and testing the possibility of the presence of other customers to become a resource of experience co-creation, which is currently overlooked in the restaurant dining literature. The study advances the concept of co-creation by including the presence of other customers and restates the active role of diners in creating experiences. It also considers the existence of structural patterns in individualized experiences.

In view of the intense competition between businesses in the sharing economy and the conventional hospitality industry, this study aims to compare consumers’ private social dining and restaurant dining experiences.

In-depth interviews with 29 private social diners were conducted to yield 10 dining experiential domains, which were then validated using online survey data from 840 diners across four sample groups – local (Hong Kong) private social diners, local (Hong Kong) restaurant diners, overseas private social diners and overseas restaurant diners – to empirically examine a mechanism through which the dining experience influences diners’ psychological and behavioral responses.

The significant differences emerged among the four sample groups in their evaluations of dining experiences. The mediating role of memorability appeared weaker in overseas settings than in local settings.

The findings suggest restaurateurs be creative and open-minded in designing dining experiences that go beyond food-related satisfaction. Destination marketers should also find the findings insightful because they can diversify their catering offerings by differentiating private social dining with conventional restaurants.

The study presents a novel angle on experiential consumption in the sharing economy to focus on food-sharing activities, which is thought to complement the currently skewed research focus in the sharing economy. A theoretically driven mechanism was also validated to explain the experiential differences between conventional restaurants and private social dining.

This paper aims to use a mixed method approach to understand the role of emotions and sensual delight in influencing satisfaction and intention. The setting for the study is restaurants. Three types of restaurants form the basis of investigation: fine dining, family dining and fast food restaurants. Using three categories of restaurants affords the opportunity to understand the differential impact of sensual delight and emotions in these settings. Furthermore the mixed method approach helps to validate the quantitative findings and also to offer additional insight in consumption emotions.

The study is based on a concurrent, two‐studies design where quantitative and qualitative data are both collected (concurrently or sequentially) and analyzed separately. Four independent investigations are reported in this paper. The first three investigations (fine dining, family dining and fast food dining) are based on quantitative modeling using LISREL. The last investigation provides a richer narrative using phenomenological approach.

The quantitative findings show a strong influence of sensual delight and emotions in affecting satisfaction and intentions. The qualitative findings show how managers may enhance the dining experience and customer satisfaction.

Caution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.

The findings provide a framework for managers in creating a delightful dining experience.

There are several important contributions from this study. First the role of emotions in various dining aspects is new in this study. It has not been investigated in dining situations. Next, while the role of sensual delight in hedonic situations is understandable, it has not been systematically investigated using causal models. Third, this study uses a mixed method approach. The quantitative study is followed by a qualitative study to add further insights that will help understand drivers of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Thus it is a very comprehensive study on sensual delight in the restaurant industry.

This study aims to investigate the effects of memorable dining experiences (MDEs) in the USA during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 530 valid survey responses were collected in the USA. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM) was used to estimate inner and outer models. A two-stage approach was applied to test the moderating effects of restaurant safety measures. Additional analyses were conducted to compare electronic word of mouth (eWOM) intention and actual eWOM behavior.

All five dimensions contributed to the overall memorability of a dining experience, with affect being the primary factor. Overall memorability was positively related to subjective well-being and actual eWOM behavior. Restaurant safety measures were positively related to the overall experience but did not moderate the relationship between any dimension and overall memorability.

Findings provide empirical support for the conceptualization of MDEs during a pandemic and underscore the importance of actual eWOM behavior in restaurant research.

Results offer guidance for restaurant managers in designing MDEs.

The restaurant industry is evolving from simply providing products and services to creating experiences. Yet the impacts of crafting MDEs are not well understood, especially during a pandemic. This study filled this gap by investigating MDEs and their effects on subjective well-being and eWOM behavior.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of the dining experience elements at gas stations foodservice outlets: (1) food quality, (2) service quality, (3) convenience and (4) atmospherics on customers' overall satisfaction and behavioral intention. This study also examines the mediating effect of overall satisfaction on dining experience elements and behavioral intention.

This paper applies a quantitative approach, using partial least square-structural equation modeling for analysis. Survey data were collected online from 231 participants in the United States.

Convenience and food quality are strong predictors of gas station food purchasing overall satisfaction and behavioral intention. Meanwhile, service quality and atmospherics were not statistically significant.

This study's survey was conducted online. Participants reflected on their dining experience at gas station dining outlets in the prior week.

This study contributes to the existing foodservice literature by exploring dining at gas stations. It also provides a new insight into the importance of convenience in influencing overall satisfaction and behavior intention in a gas station foodservice setting.

This study helps with the understanding of consumer behavior and expectations of a fast-food setting. This study helps with enhancing convenience in order to improve the customers' experience and reduce their daily stress relating to wait time for purchasing fast-food meals.

This is the first study to examine consumer experience at a gas station food service setting.

Solo travel for leisure and business is increasing. It is therefore timely to conduct research into the experiences of solo tourists. This paper aims to explore one aspect of the solo tourist experience that can be challenging, that of dining alone. This topic has received little attention in the tourism or hospitality literature.

A qualitative approach was adopted and narrative inquiry was selected as the optimum route to obtain detailed and rich accounts of the experiences of solo diners. In-depth interviews of 27 solo tourists were conducted with varying socio-demographic characteristics.

This study shows that though travelling alone is prized by participants, dining alone, especially in the evening, is often discomfiting. Discomfort is caused by the perceived negative judgement of others and is mitigated by the use of various props such as books and mobile phones.

A research agenda is put forward on the aspects of the solo tourist/diner experience.

The paper concludes by asking what can be done to ameliorate the solo dining experience and provides some recommendations to hospitality operators to support this market and improve competitiveness and profitability. The paper shows that inclusive environments can attract multiple market segments and agile restaurants can develop both solo and plural dining experiences.

This paper addresses a topic that has received limited scholarly attention as well as industry engagement despite the growth in solo travel.

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.

Service excellence has been recognized as a crucial means of achieving customer delight. Several recent studies have argued that redundant services may be perceived as unnecessary by customers; however, few studies have explored the construct of service redundancy. This study aims to identify and classify service redundancy in the foodservice industry.

This qualitative study conducted in-depth interviews with 72 participants, namely, 36 customers and 36 managers of fine dining restaurants in Taiwan. Content analysis of the data yielded the classification of service redundancy.

This study determined 16 categories of service redundancy categorized under three themes: service behavior, service regulations and environmental factors. Furthermore, six causes and four consequences of service redundancy were identified.

Customers and managers of fine dining restaurants were interviewed; thus, the findings may not be fully generalizable to service redundancy in other restaurant types.

The contribution of this research is the construction of a model of service redundancy, which could serve as a theoretical foundation for further examination of service redundancy and the relationships between the related constructs.

Private kitchens have grown significantly in the past few years in Hong Kong and have become popular in the catering industry. This study aims to examine the expectations and perceptions of private kitchen diners regarding their dining experiences.

A descriptive research design and a cross‐sectional survey were used. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 167 respondents in four main business districts in Hong Kong. The first section of the questionnaire included some screening questions. In the first part of the second section, respondents were asked to rate their expectations on each of the attributes of private kitchens using a seven‐point Likert scale. In the second part, respondents were asked to rate their perceptions of the same attribute in private kitchens using the same measurement scales. Section three of the questionnaire included questions about the respondents' demographic characteristics.

Most of the private kitchen diners valued the undisclosed dining area as the best thing about private kitchens, followed by privacy and a special dining feeling. The results of a paired‐samples t‐test indicated that private kitchen diners' perceptions of private kitchens fell short of their expectations in general. An exploratory factor analysis was also employed, resulting in the identification and interpretation of four factors that are likely to influence people's intention to dine in private kitchens. They were: responsiveness to guest needs; professional chef and staff; homely feeling and privacy; and intimate dining experience.

The major limitation of this study is that respondents were asked to rate the perceived dining attributes in terms of expectations and perceptions at the same time, as it was technically difficult to ask for the same respondents to complete the questionnaire before and after dining in a private kitchen. Still, this study is useful for other researchers to undertake further studies on private kitchens, such as customers' repeat patronage and loyalty.

There have been few studies on private kitchen businesses, although this sector has become very popular especially in the Hong Kong catering industry. The findings of this study can be viewed as a preliminary step to understand the private kitchen business.