How Restaurant Features Affect Check Averages: A Study of the Toronto Restaurant Market

Abstract

[Excerpt] Full-service restaurants are under more pressure than ever, in part because the restaurant business has seen strong growth in the home-meal- replacement concept in recent years. Given the tumultuous competition in the restaurant business, we examined the underlying determinants or drivers of a successful full-service restaurant operation. In particular, we wanted to discover what restaurant attributes improve customers’ ratings of a restaurant and, more to the point, boosted check averages. This investigation focused on three specific questions: (1) What restaurant features matter the most to consumers in their dining experi­ences?, (2) What does it take to be the best in consumers’ eyes?, and (3) To what extent do high con­sumer ratings predict a high check average? To answer those questions we present a multi-stage analysis of the relationships among restaurants’ operational characteristics and amenities and the consumers’ per­ceptions of restaurant quality, and, in turn, the relationship between consumers’ perceptions of their restau­rant experience and operators’ reports regarding their check averages.