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This study aims to investigate, when a service failure occurs, whether circumstantial cues could be used to encourage more positive responses by customers toward restaurants through the mediation of causal attribution.

A 2 (cause of service failure: easily observable vs difficult-to-observe) × 2 (kitchen design: open vs closed) between-subject experiment is used to analyze customers’ causal attributions of service failures and resultant responses.

When a service failure whose cause is easy to identify occurs, customers at open-kitchen restaurants show more negative responses than those at closed-kitchen restaurants because they are likely to attribute the responsibility to the restaurant. Attribution is confirmed to mediate the relationship between the interaction of service failure by kitchen design and customers’ responses.

Diverse circumstantial cues should be actively used to encourage more positive responses by customers. The mediating role of causal attribution should be considered in managing customers’ responses toward service failures.

This study finds that circumstantial cues could be useful in dealing with service failures in restaurants by confirming the mediating role of causal attribution.