Comprehensive Literature Review: Dining Experience at Restaurants

This report is a structured abstract of a literature review examining the dining experience in restaurants, drawing upon four academic articles. The review begins with a brief summary of the theory and its progression, focusing on management aspects such as menu development, staff training, and marketing strategies. Common themes across the articles include the importance of menu management, customer service, and the impact of special offers and discounts. The report highlights different findings, such as the significance of al fresco dining, seasonal menus, and well-trained staff. Limitations of the studies, primarily their qualitative nature, are discussed, along with potential future research directions, including the impact of negative marketing and requirements for starting a restaurant. The references include articles by Lee, Hallak, and Sardeshmukh; Ozdemir and Caliskan; Tse and Poon; and Kim and Kim.

Running Head: DINING EXPERIENCE AT A RESTAURANT
Dining Experience at a Restaurant
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Literature Review............................................................................................................................2
Brief summary of the theory and progression in the Field..............................................................2
Common Themes across Four Articles............................................................................................2
Different themes/findings across the four articles...........................................................................4
Study limitations and how these differ across the various study designs........................................5
Future research directions proposed in the articles..........................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Literature Review
Brief summary of the theory and progression in the Field
The theories that these articles deal with are mostly concerned with things that are needed
for the management of the restaurant. The restaurant has to deal with the number of management
issues such the managing the menu, the staff, doing the inventory among others. These are the
things that matter while managing a restaurant and that is what all the theories deal with. Lee,
Hallak and Sardeshmukh talk about the roles that the manager needs to take a part of the
restaurant likewise the other authors also talk about the management of the restaurant and
possibilities of marketing and customer satisfaction. The theories that have been used in this
research deals with the customer satisfaction and the ways to achieve it. The theories also talk
about the ways in which the restaurant can be managed. The articles used are by Lee, Hallak and
Sardeshmukh, Ozdemir and Caliskan, Tse and Poon and Kim, and Kim.
Common Themes across Four Articles
According to Lee, Hallak and Sardeshmukh (2016), managing a restaurant effectively
includes balancing many departments, processes and different groups of people in a seamless
manner so that the operation of the restaurant goes without any major disruptions. There are a lot
of things that a restaurant manager has to keep track of, these includes food costs, customer
service, inventory tracking, staff scheduling, food production and the most important of them all
marketing. The first step in successfully managing a restaurant includes creating a menu while
keeping the cost of the food in mind. The success of any restaurant depends on the menu that the

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restaurant has. The kind of food that is being sold, the prices of the food and also the way in
which the menu is presented goes a long in determining the success of the restaurant. For many
restaurants menu management is the most important job. Menu is not only about the kind of food
that is being sold at a restaurant but also about the uniqueness, the kind of food that is being is
prepared and the area at which it is being served. All of this comes into consideration while
development the menu for the restaurant. In the opinion of Ozdemir and Caliskan (2014), the
menu has to be developed from a profit standpoint of the restaurant; the menu has to be a
standard one.
Ideally the menu should be decided by the manager, the restaurant owner and chef,
another thing that has to be kept in mind is that one of the decision makers must have experience
in the food industry otherwise the menu might not turn out to be the way that was assumed by
the owner of the restaurant. While deciding the menu of the restaurant, it has to be kept in mind
that the menu should bring profit to the restaurant, the cost of the dishes have to be regularized.
The restaurant management team should be responsible for the following things: decide on the
kind of food that the restaurant will serve, creating the list of ingredients that are needed for the
food that will be cooked, figure out the cost for the menu and each of the items, creating the
recipes and the preparation process for every food on the menu and finally pricing the items on
the menu after looking into the actual ingredient cost and the number of times it is prepared.
According to Tse and Poon (2017), creating specials every day is a great way of
increasing the revenue of the restaurant. Specials are a great way for the restaurant to maximize
the profits and hence keeping the menu updated and fresh. There could be special on drinks too.
Giving discounts also helps retain the customers and also attract new customers. The sale of
liquors are always more profitable than the sale of food. Selling liquors are always more

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profitable for the restaurant, including some wines and craft beer will always bring profit to the
restaurants.
All the four articles talk about the requirements of a restaurant. The major things that are
required by the managers and owners to run a restaurant. The major things that are required by
the restaurant are proper menu, a proper kitchen and a well behaved staff.
Different themes/findings across the four articles
The different themes are that these articles talks about the various needs of the that are
required by the customers to rely upon the restaurant. No business can survive without its
customer and if the customers do not get good experience, they stop taking services from the
company and leave for some other company. Offering al fresco waiting is an important way of
satisfying the customer (Lee, Hallak and Sardeshmukh 2016). Every restaurant might not have
an outside space to do anything or put chairs and table still, the restaurant should work hard
towards creating a space where the people can wait and then order some small portion of food
and then stand outside and eat. The people that visit the restaurant like to wave a proper waiting
area, this increases the chances of customer retention, the people of the restaurant will have a
place to wait until the tables ready, they can eat something small while waiting. The number of
food that is ordered in an Al-fresco dining is more than that of the normal dining. The customers
tend to order more beverages and small things in an al-fresco waiting area, the amount of food
ordered is more than what people have during in-house dining.
As mentioned earlier discounts and special offers are not only important for the restaurant
but for the customer as well. The customers look for restaurants that give special offers in some
days. It is not possible for the restaurant to give special offers everyday but on some days of the

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week the restaurant should give the option as this will bring in new customers and keep the
existing customers loyal to the restaurant (Tse and Poon 2017). The special offers are very
important to get proper customer satisfaction.
The restaurants should make most of every season; this will keep the customer satisfied
and will attract a lot of customer for the restaurant. Making use of every season means adding
seasonal dishes to the menu such as summer special fruits and Christmas special menu is very
important to retain customer at the restaurant. Having special menus attracts a number of new
customers during the holiday.
Having a fixed lunchtime menu is always good for the customers, as the quality of food
that is available is quite high because they cook the specific thing every day. There will be a
bunch of customers that will visit the restaurant only because fixed lunch menu or the fixed
dinner menu. Some part of the menu should always be fixed; this increases customer satisfaction
and also the amount of money that is being invested by the restaurant (Ozdemir and Caliskan
2014).
One of the prime reason behind the satisfaction of the customer is the training that staff
has received. The staff should be well trained and should have proper manners that will be useful
while greeting the customers. The customers should feel like that they are welcome in the
restaurant and the person that is serving the food is graceful towards them (Kim, and Kim, 2004).
The staff should greet the customers properly and talk to them in a polite manner; they should
also talk to the customers about the menu and the food.
The most important way of getting positive customer review is by providing good service
to the customer. The service of the restaurant is what the restaurant is known for. The customer

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reviews have a massive impact on the business of the restaurant. The restaurant might be known
for its services but if the customers are not satisfied with it, they criticize the restaurant to other
people and this might harm the reputation of the restaurant. The service provided by the
restaurant has to be good enough to sustain their good reputation in market.
The marketing of the restaurant has to be very effective; there should be a proper digital
marketing company that needs to hire in order to properly market the restaurant. A well marketed
restaurant might go a long way in building the reputation of the restaurant and gaining a proper
review from the customers. Nowadays there are various mobile applications that allow the
customer to give reviews about their favorite restaurant; these applications help a lot in
marketing the restaurant.
Study limitations and how these differ across the various study designs
The main limitations that can be seen from these studies is that they are mostly
qualitatively analyzed, which means that the data is limited and the researchers have mostly
spoken to the people about the problems or the pre-requisites of maintaining a restaurant. The
people that deal with the restaurant business knows the things that are required to maintain but
they a quantitative analysis would have helped the researches to be more authentic. With the
help of the quantitative analysis the researches should have been able to cover a lot more data
and then the analysis also would have been sufficient.
Future research directions proposed in the articles
The researches in the future could have talked about the problems that the negative
marketing of the restaurant has on the business of the restaurant. The researches could have also

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outlined the necessary requirements for starting a restaurant. The articles have talked in detain
about the problems of the management might face and the things that are required by the
restaurant in order for them to be successful. The article could have talked in detail about the
ways in which the restaurants can be marketed and the impact that these marketing techniques
would have on the business of the restaurant.

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References
Lee, C., Hallak, R. and Sardeshmukh, S.R., 2016. Innovation, entrepreneurship, and restaurant
performance: A higher-order structural model. Tourism Management, 53, pp.215-228.
Ozdemir, B. and Caliskan, O., 2014. A review of literature on restaurant menus: Specifying the
managerial issues. International Journal of gastronomy and food science, 2(1), pp.3-13.
Tse, T.S. and Poon, Y.T., 2017. Modeling no-shows, cancellations, overbooking, and walk-ins in
restaurant revenue management. Journal of foodservice business research, 20(2), pp.127-145.
Kim, W.G. and Kim, H.B., 2004. Measuring customer-based restaurant brand equity. Cornell
Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 45(2), pp.115-131.