Service Environment of Restaurants: Findings from the youth customers

Abstract

The relatively service-driven restaurant industry is becoming more important in generating income for many Asian countries and hence the service performance of the restaurants must be well understood and managed. The key determinants for restaurant service quality need to be identified, especially for the important segment such as youth customers. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the importance of service environment (servicescape and human service), food quality and price from the youth customers’ perspective. The types of restaurant investigated were the fine dining (n1 = 145), fast food (n2 = 147), and food court (n3 = 117) restaurants. Duly completed structured questionnaires (n = 409) were collected. The key determinants on satisfaction and loyalty were mainly human service and price. However, the impact of servicescape on customer satisfaction and loyalty was relatively smaller, except for fast food restaurants.