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Many restaurants offer high-quality service to their customers, hoping to provide memorable experiences that influence their loyalty and electronic word of mouth (eWOM). However, consumers' memorable experiences do not always imply positive eWOM. This study aims to (1) verify the direct impacts of the perceived quality by consumers of casual dining restaurants on positive emotions, negative emotions and memorable experiences; (2) investigate the impacts of memorable experiences on the propensity to loyalty and eWOM; (3) test the moderating effect of consumer behavioural engagement on social networking sites (CBE-SNS) on the relationship between memorable experiences and eWOM.

This survey included 475 university students in Brazil. Participants answered an electronic form about their experiences in casual dining restaurants. Structural equation modelling tested the hypothetical model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974).

The quality perceived by restaurant consumers (stimulus) positively impacts their memorable experiences and positive emotions and negatively affects their negative emotions (organism). Memorable experiences positively impact the propensity to loyalty (response). The CBE-SNS moderates the intensity of the relationship between memorable experiences (organism) and eWOM (response).

This study is the first that demonstrates the relationships between perceived quality, positive and negative emotions, memorable experiences, the propensity to loyalty and CBE-SNS and e-WOM in restaurants. Casual dining restaurants must offer their customers services with high perceived quality, positively impacting their emotions and their memorable experiences. Finally, restaurants must create strategies and actions to increase the CBE-SNS to encourage them to share their memorable experiences through eWOM.

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.

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.

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.

The purpose of this study is to unearth antecedents of regrettable dining experiences related to the information source, action and inaction perspectives, dining companion influence and interactions among information source, the focal customer’s valence and the dining companion’s valence on regret, leading to sequential behavioral outcomes.

Using a scenario-based experimental study, 344 qualified questionnaires were collected. Univariate ANOVA and multiple linear regression analyses were implemented.

The results of this study reveal that action regret is more intense than inaction regret during the choice-making phase; dining companion negative feedback intensifies focal customer’s regret. The significance of the information source on regret disappeared when only one party reported negative feedback; conversely, when two parties in the co-consumption experience revealed negative feedback, the relationship between information source of choice and regret was sustained.

The nature of scenario-based design may lack realism. Thus, more field experiments are encouraged to test the propositions further. This research enhances our understanding of gastronomic experiences in a negative disconfirmation context, drawing upon action/inaction regret theory, attribution theory and the expectancy disconfirmation model.

From a triad relationship perspective, this study provides valuable input on who or what will be attributed to the issues when encountering a food and wine sensory failure. Additionally, insightful recommendations are supplied on avoiding the possibility of inducing the experience of regret and how practitioners can increase the potential for a memorable dining experience.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that enriched the existing knowledge of regrettable dining experiences relating to information sources and social influence.

Restaurants are challenged to secure attraction attributes that provide motives, satisfaction and experiences for guests. The social interaction between server and guest can provide. Our case study aims to examine the perspectives of hospitality executives towards showmanship and server performances in restaurants to enhance servicescape and elevate guest experiences.

A literature review examined employee showmanship as part of the cocreation of gastronomic experiences and servicescape. Additional data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with 15 hospitality executives affiliated with Macao’s integrated resorts (IRs), and the information was examined using thematic analysis.

The study outcomes showed management support for showmanship performed by servers or chefs in cocreating immersive memorable dining experiences and social media and user-generated content (UGC). This was perceived to distinguish a restaurant from the competition. However, server talent and showmanship interaction with guests must be well managed, and bundled with additional restaurant servicescape attributes.

The comments from hospitality management provide key insights towards implementing and maintaining showmanship which will involve resource challenges including server artisan talent and restaurant design.

Server showmanship social interaction and value cocreation with guests are rarely discussed, although a key part of guest restaurant motivation and in creating an immersive experience. We address the limited understanding of hospitality management assessment towards developing showmanship, providing practical perspectives to assist restaurant and bar management to integrate and develop showmanship to enhance customer dining experiences.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the robotic restaurant experience of travellers around the world and understand the components of robotic restaurant experience.

Travellers who had experienced a robotic restaurant were purposefully selected as a sample group for the study. As the robotic restaurants are limited around the world, multiple case study method has been chosen to gather richer data. A user-generated content technique which is a form of qualitative case study method has been benefited to gather data from travellers’ reviews.

The results reveal a model of components of robotic restaurant experience that include six main themes: attraction for kids, robotic system, memorable experience, ambience related attributes, food related attributes (economic value and gastronomic aspects) and deficiencies (in robotic system, in ambience related attributes and in food related attributes).

This paper is one of the first to investigate the robotic restaurant experience of travellers around the world. Moreover, it contributes to the research on restaurant experience and offers a model of components of the robotic restaurant experience.

Gastronomic festivals are important events to bring people together around food-themed activities. This study aimed at determining the relationships between festival quality, memorable food experience, loyalty, behavioral intention, hedonic well-being, and eudaimonic well-being. In this study, festival quality is the independent variable that affects the memorable food experience, the memorable food experience is the independent variable that affects loyalty, and loyalty is the independent variable that affects behavioral intent. Hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being are moderating variables. Behavioral intention is the dependent variable, while memorable food experience and loyalty are both dependent and independent variables.

The population consisted of local tourists visiting Orange Blossom Carnival held in Adana, Turkey. The survey technique and the convenience sampling method were preferred and 545 data were obtained.

The analysis results showed that all dimensions of the memorable food experience are strongly affected by festival quality. Plus, superior service approach and high value perception dimensions of the memorable food experience have significant effects on loyalty. Furthermore, destination loyalty was found to have a strong effect on behavioral intentions. Moreover, higher levels of Hedonic well-being (HWB) and Eudomenic well-being (EWB) were found to increase the effect of loyalty on behavioral intention; accordingly, the moderator roles of HWB and EWB were determined.

This article provides information that the memorable dining experiences of festival visitors who attend the Orange Blossom Carnival in Adana affect the quality of the festival and their intentions to loyalty. In addition, in the study, it was found that the well-being of carnival visitors had a moderating role in the effect of their loyalty on their behavioral intentions. Therefore, this article provides information on how the food experiences and well-being of the visitors at the gastronomy festival will affect which factors.

According to the findings, gastronomy-based events may affect tourists’ experiences, and tourists’ psychological well-being affects loyalty and behavioral intentions. Destination management organizations can learn about gastronomy-based festivals. The results of the study include a number of theoretical and practical findings for destination management organizations, festival managers, policy makers and academics working in the literature.

Innovative restaurant service designs impart food wellbeing to diners. This research comprehends customer aspirations and concerns in a restaurant-dining experience to develop a service design that enhances the dining experience using the design thinking approach and evaluates its efficiency using the Taguchi method of robust design.

The sequential incidence technique defines diners' needs, which, followed by brainstorming sessions, helped create multiple service designs with important attributes. Prototype narration, as a scenario, acted as the stimulus for evaluators to respond to the WHO-5 wellbeing index scale. Scenario-based Taguchi experiment with nine foodservice attributes in two levels and the wellbeing score as the response variable helped identify levels of critical factors that develop better FWB.

The study identified the best combination of factors and their preferred levels to maximize FWB in a restaurant. Food serving hygiene, followed by information about cuisine specification, and food movement in the restaurant, were important to FWB. The experiment revealed that hygiene perceptions are critical to FWB, and service designs have a significant role in it. Consumers prefer detailed information about the ingredients and recipe of the food they eat; being confident that there will be no unacceptable ingredients added to the food inspires their FWB.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on design thinking and transformative service research, especially in the food industry.

This paper details a simple method to identify and evaluate important factors that optimize FWB in a restaurant. The proposed methodology will help service designers and technology experts devise settings that consider customer priorities and contribute to their experience.

This study helps to understand the application of design thinking and the Taguchi approach for creating robust service designs that optimize FWB.

Memorable customer experience (MCE) is a key factor affecting customer loyalty and revisit intention. Hospitality managers must identify factors that create MCEs. This study aims to investigate relationships among perceived coolness, customer engagement and MCE and examine the mediation effect of customer engagement.

Two samples of 434 restaurant customers and 372 hotel customers in Taiwan returned questionnaires. Hypotheses were examined by structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrated that perceived coolness positively affected customer engagement and MCE and that customer engagement positively affected MCE. Furthermore, customer engagement mediated the relationship between perceived coolness and MCE.

This study is cross-sectional, which limits causal inference. Furthermore, this study only investigated customers of Taiwanese restaurants and hotels, and the findings may not be generalizable to other industries and countries.

This study contributes to the MCE knowledge in hospitality by elucidating the association among perceived coolness, customer engagement and MCE. The findings can aid hospitality managers in developing marketing strategies, fostering customer engagement and creating MCEs.