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Journal of Product & Brand Management
I’ll have the usual: how restaurant brand image, loyalty, and satisfaction keep customers coming back
Jennifer A. Espinosa, David J. Ortinau, Nina Krey, Lisa Monahan,
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Jennifer A. Espinosa, David J. Ortinau, Nina Krey, Lisa Monahan, (2018) "I’ll have the usual: how restaurant brand image,
loyalty, and satisfaction keep customers coming back", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 27 Issue: 6, pp.599-614,
https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-10-2017-1610
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I’ll have the usual: how restaurant brand image,
loyalty, and satisfaction keep customers
coming back
Jennifer A. Espinosa
Department of Marketing and Business Information Systems, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA
David J. Ortinau
Department of Marketing, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
Nina Krey
Department of Marketing and Business Information Systems, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA, and
Lisa Monahan
Department of Marketing, Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study how repeat customers utilize their established overall restaurant brand image (ORBI),
overall restaurant loyalty, satisfaction and behavioral intentions (revisit, recommend) to reengage with a casual-dining restaurant brand.
Design/methodology/approach – The study design consists of a mixed-methods, two-phase research approach that includes both qualitative and
quantitative data. First, focus groups and in-depth interviews with adult customers reveal preliminary insights on restaurant dining patterns and
familiarity with franchised casual dining restaurants. Second, an online self-administered survey tests the influence of ORBI on repeat customers’
overall restaurant loyalty, satisfaction and behavioral intentions.
Findings – For repeat customers, ORBI positively predicts loyalty and satisfaction. Loyalty and satisfaction mediate the relationship between ORBI
and intentions to recommend, while loyalty alone mediates the relationship between ORBI and intentions to revisit a casual dining restaurant.
Practical implications – Managers looking to stimulate recommendation intentions can increase ORBI, loyalty or satisfaction among repeat
customers; or choose some combination of these three predictors. To improve revisit intentions, managers should first increase loyalty, followed by
ORBI. Importantly, management needs to tailor information given to repeat customers differently than other customers.
Originality/value – This paper provides a first conceptualization of how both loyalty and satisfaction jointly mediate the relationships between
ORBI and two behavioral intentions (revisit, recommend). The results show that loyalty plays a significant role in these predictive relationships and is
more important than satisfaction for enhancing intentions to revisit a restaurant.
Keywords Brand management, Satisfaction, Brands, Brand image, Brand loyalty
Paper type Research paper
In 2017, the restaurant industry in the USA produced
approximately $800bn in revenue, with sales in the table
service category of restaurants (which includes casual dining,
fine dining and family dining restaurants) reaching about
$260bn (National Restaurant Association, 2017). Among the
different types of restaurants making up the US restaurant
industry, casual sit-down dining (CD) restaurants are
establishments that serve moderately priced food and
alcohol, with tables served by a waiter in a laid-back
environment (e.g. Applebee’s, Chili’s, Red Lobster; Mealy,
2016). Historically, CD restaurant executives and experts
have relied on a restaurant brand’s image and loyal customer
base to keep their brands profitable and successful (Dick and
Basu, 1994; Dobini and Zinkhan, 1990; Faircloth et al.,
2001; Jin, 2015). Recently, CD restaurants have been
struggling to match the annual growth of restaurants in the
quick service category (National Restaurant Association,
2017; Taylor, 2017b). The stagnation of sales growth in CD
restaurants raises the question of whether maintaining a
restaurant’s brand image and building customer loyalty are
still effective strategies to encourage repeat customers to
reengage with the restaurant brand?
Traditionally, CD restaurant managers implement strategic
actions, such as adding craft beers to their drink menu, to
enhance the overall image of their restaurant brand (Taylor,
2017a). In the literature, overall restaurant brand images
(ORBIs) represent customers’ positive or negative global
mental impressions of a restaurant brand (Hartman and Spiro,
2005; Lai et al., 2009; Ortinau and Babin, 2007). Repeat
customers’ (defined as consumers who have first-hand
consumption experience with a focal restaurant brand; for
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
27/6 (2018) 599–614
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-10-2017-1610]
599Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 20:47 08 April 2019 (PT)

example, returning customers) ORBIs often remain impervious
to strategic actions taken by brand managers, which can
negatively impact restaurant sales and foot traffic (Dixon,
2016). The difficulty customers have noticing subtle
differences between similar CD restaurant brands is one reason
why management actions do not always translate into updated
ORBIs (Jones, 2017). While brand managers take actions to
enhance the uniqueness of their restaurant’s brand, these
actions will only be effective in improving market position,
market share and overall market performance if customers
subsequently modify their ORBI accordingly (Park et al.,
1986). As the CD segment of the restaurant industry continues
to increase in competitiveness, differentiation from competitors
becomes critical. Managers that understand how repeat
customers think about and use their ORBIs to make dining
decisions will be able to take strategic actions to boost
customers’ behavioral intentions and subsequent behaviors
that will lead to sustainable growth in sales and restaurant
profitability (Dixon, 2016; Han et al., 2016; Morgan and Rego,
2006; Taylor, 2017a).
How do repeat CD restaurant customers use their
established ORBIs to make choices about dining behaviors?
Ryu et al.’s (2008) work in the quick-casual restaurant segment
offers initial insight and shows that customers’ ORBIs and
satisfaction together influence their behavioral intentions.
Outside of the restaurant context, Souiden and Pons’ (2009)
research on the brand image of automobile manufacturers
offers evidence that customers’ brand image and loyalty jointly
determine their likelihood of repurchasing the brand. Although
Souiden and Pons (2009) assess brand images in the context of
automobile companies, the findings resonate with restaurant
executives’ beliefs about the importance of customer loyalty to
a brand’s survival (Jin, 2015). While these prior studies provide
preliminary insights on how repeat customers use ORBIs to
make dining choices, to fully understand the role of ORBI,
brand loyalty and satisfaction in repeat customer decision-
making, all three constructs need to be studied in tandem.
Therefore, the primary purpose of the current research is to
explore how ORBI together with brand loyalty and satisfaction
influence repeat customers’ behavioral intentions to reengage
with a CD restaurant brand. The present study focuses on two
main research questions:
RQ1. How do repeat customers’ ORBI, overall restaurant
loyalty and overall restaurant satisfaction influence
their behavioral intentions to reengage with a CD
restaurant brand?
RQ2. How do the roles of ORBI, overall restaurant loyalty
and overall restaurant satisfaction change, if at all,
between different types of behavioral intentions?
CD restaurant managers can use the answers to these research
questions to more effectively manage repeat customers’ ORBIs,
loyalty and satisfaction and behavioral intentions to maintain
revenues and market share amidst strong competition within
the industry.
The present research is unique from existing literature and
contributes in several important ways. First, both overall
restaurant loyalty and overall restaurant satisfaction play
important roles in the relationships between ORBI and
behavioral intentions. Thus, the current research extends
previous work by integrating customer loyalty with customer
satisfaction as important mediators of the ORBI-behavioral
intentions relationships and confirms overall brand loyalty’s
applicability to the restaurant industry (Ryu et al., 2008;
Souiden and Pons, 2009). Second, the study investigates two
different behavioral intentions applicable to CD restaurant
customers – recommending and revisiting a restaurant. By
studying two behavioral intentions concurrently, rather than
a global or single behavioral intention, the present research
shows that ORBI, customers’ overall restaurant loyalty and
overall restaurant satisfaction play differentially important
roles in shaping repeat customers’ intentions to reengage with
a restaurant brand depending on the type of intention.
Third, the context of the article focuses on repeat customers
exclusively, who have established ORBIs through direct
consumption experiences. In contrast, much of the literature
investigates how first-time customers (defined as consumers
with perceptual knowledge of a focal restaurant brand, not first-
hand consumption experience; for example, new customers,
non-customers) initially build ORBIs based on their restaurant
brand perceptions (Ha and Jang, 2010; Liu and Jang, 2009;
Ryu et al., 2012). Once repeat customers establish ORBIs, the
antecedents typically used to construct ORBIs (e.g. customer
loyalty, customer satisfaction; Engel et al., 2006) flip and
become outcomes of ORBI. Thus, defining the target
population of the current research as repeat customers best
matches restaurant managements’ interest in maintaining loyal
customer bases (Dixon, 2016). Finally, the study utilizes real
CD restaurant brands (e.g. Applebee’s, Chili’s) rather than
fictitious brands while requiring all subjects to be familiar and
experienced with the focal restaurant brands. This screening
requirement enhances the quality of the data in testing the
hypothesized relational linkages between the key constructs of
interest.
The remainder of the article unfolds as follows: the next
section discusses ORBI and other key constructs important
to the conceptual framework and introduces the proposed
hypotheses. The methodology section presents the mixed-
method, two-phase research design executed to collect the
necessary data and the empirical results of the hypotheses
tests. The article closes with a discussion of the findings,
contributions, managerial implications and limitations of
the current research, as well as suggestions for future
research.
Conceptual background
Overall restaurant brand image
CD restaurant environments contain numerous features that
customers evaluate and use to describe a restaurant’s overall
brand image (ORBI). In the current study, ORBI is defined as a
repeat customer’s global mental impression of a restaurant
brand, typically expressed in a positive or negative light (e.g.
“Target is an inviting, clean store that offers me a fun shopping
experience;” Hartman and Spiro, 2005; Lai et al., 2009;
Ortinau and Babin, 2007). Some restaurant features customers
evaluate are tangible, such as restaurant location, parking
availability, breadth of menu offerings, lighting and music
(Baker et al., 2002; Broniarczyk et al., 1998). Other intangible
I’ll have the usual
Jennifer A. Espinosa, David J. Ortinau, Nina Krey and Lisa Monahan
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 27 · Number 6 · 2018 · 599–614
600Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 20:47 08 April 2019 (PT)

features include the service quality, product quality, employee
knowledge, social interaction and friendliness of employees
(Jalilvand et al., 2017; Sirohi and McLaughlin, 1998).
Overtime, repeat customers integrate several of these tangible
and intangible features to form an overall image of a restaurant
brand. For repeat customers, ORBI becomes a key
experienced-based predictor of their dining choices (Vroom,
1964).
The theory of reasoned action can be used to explain how
repeat customers integrate separate features of a CD restaurant
together to create ORBIs. In short, the theory of reasoned
action describes how individuals use their own attitudes and
subjective norms to form behavioral intentions (Ajzen and
Fishbein, 1980). According to this theory, attitudes are a
function of:
 beliefs about a focal object/feature (e.g. Applebee’s will
have clean restrooms); and
 subjective evaluations of how well or poorly the focal
object/feature met the expected beliefs (e.g. Applebee’s
bathrooms have been dirty on the last three visits, so a
negative attitude towards Applebee’s cleanliness
develops).
An individual’s attitude can contain several different beliefs
within it, so changing an attitude may require changing more
than just one belief (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). For example,
if a customer’s negative attitude towards restaurant
cleanliness depends 33 per cent on the cleanliness of the
restrooms, 33 per cent on the cleanliness of the table and 33
per cent on the cleanliness of the parking lot, then the CD
restaurant may need to make improvements in more than just
the cleanliness of the restroom to improve the overall
attitude. In some circumstances, subjective norms, which are
perceptions of what others believe or expect and learned
through indirect experience (e.g. advertising, online reviews,
recommendations from friends, etc.; Fazio and Zanna, 1978;
Marks and Kamins, 1988), can determine an individual’s
behavioral intentions (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). For
example, first-time customers visiting Chili’s will rely
primarily on their subjective norms (quality described in
commercials, similarity to Google reviews, etc.) associated
with dining at Chili’s. During their first dining visit, these
first-time customers will evaluate numerous features of the
restaurant (food quality, service quality, atmosphere, etc.)
and begin to integrate that information to form attitudes
towards each restaurant feature. With repeat visits to Chili’s,
first-time customers will transition into repeat customers with
uniquely tailored ORBIs, which represents their global
mental impression of the Chili’s brand based upon the
various features of the restaurant they find most important.
The composition of each repeat customer’s ORBI will vary in
relative importance of restaurant features (Dobni and
Zinkhan, 1990).
Once CD restaurant customers establish an ORBI, the ORBI
acts as a heuristic information processing tool in future dining
choices. The conceptual framework of the current research
predicts that repeat customers develop relational associations
between their ORBI, overall restaurant loyalty and overall
restaurant satisfaction based on previous dining experiences at
a restaurant. Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory, which
explains how individuals use their prior impressions to
anticipate outcomes and make choices (e.g. a positive ORBI
will relate to positive overall restaurant loyalty), offers an
explanation of how repeat customers form relational linkages to
ORBI (Vroom, 1964). For example, a repeat customer with the
goal of dining at a CD restaurant will compare the positive
relational associations between ORBI, overall restaurant loyalty
and overall restaurant satisfaction for different CD brands, and
use the results of those quick comparisons to select a CD
restaurant. This process enables repeat customers to quickly
evaluate dining options and to more easily make a decision than
systematically processing information on multiple restaurant
features individually (Chen and Dubinsky, 2003; Sanchez-
Fernandez and Iniesta-Bonillo, 2007; Tversky and Kahneman,
1974; Zeithaml, 1988).
According to the theory of reasoned action and expectancy
theory, first-hand, direct experience results in stronger attitudes
than indirect experience (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Manstead
et al., 1983; Vroom, 1964). The theory of reasoned action, in
particular, specifies that a lack of first-hand, direct experience
results in a higher likelihood of subjective norms outweighing
an individual’s own perceptions. Existing research studying
attitude formation based on advertisements echoes the
importance of experience, finding that individuals with direct
experience form stronger attitudes than other individuals with
only indirect experience (Fazio and Zanna, 1978; Marks and
Kamins, 1988; Smith & Swinyard, 1983). In the restaurant
context, first-time CD customers without first-hand, direct
consumption experience will rely more heavily on their
subjective norms learned from indirect experience to make a
dining choice, as they have not yet formed attitudes towards a
new restaurant brand. Because first-time CD customers are still
in the process of establishing their ORBIs, the current research
focuses exclusively on repeat customers with established
ORBIs.
Overall restaurant loyalty
Some researchers suggest that brand loyalty represents
customers’ strong feelings of commitment to a brand and has
direct positive influences on a brand’s equity, profitability,
revenue, market share and long-term survival (Chaudhuri and
Holbrook, 2001; Knox and Denison, 2000; Tepeci, 1999).
Loyal customers buy more, are willing to pay higher prices and
generate positive word of mouth, leading to a strong positive
relationship between customer loyalty and retailer performance
(Chandrashekaran et al., 2007; Morgan and Rego, 2006; Peng
and Chen, 2015). In the current research, overall restaurant
loyalty represents a specific form of brand loyalty and is defined
as repeat customers’ strong emotional feelings of overall
commitment to a restaurant brand. In the restaurant context,
loyal customers develop emotional bonds that keep them
connected with the brand and transform them into advocates
for the restaurant (Mattila, 2001).
Researchers studying overall restaurant loyalty conceptualize
the construct in multiple ways, including as an attitude (Han
and Ryu, 2009; Jin et al., 2012), a behavior (Jin, 2015) or a
behavioral intention (Peng and Chen, 2015). Attitudinal
researchers conceptualize overall restaurant loyalty as a
positive, affective commitment to specific restaurant brands,
often measuring the construct as a preference for a specific
I’ll have the usual
Jennifer A. Espinosa, David J. Ortinau, Nina Krey and Lisa Monahan
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 27 · Number 6 · 2018 · 599–614
601Downloaded by VICTORIA UNIVERSITY (Australia) At 20:47 08 April 2019 (PT)