Customer Expectations of Casual Dining Restaurants: The Case of Liberty Tap Room

The current research examines the importance of restaurant attributes as rated by customers dining in a casual-style restaurant located in a medium-sized city in the Southeast United States. Previous research and the models used to measure customer perceptions of restaurant attributes were reviewed. The assessment instrument chosen for the current study was adapted from DinEX, developed by Antun, Frash, Costen, and Runyan (2010). A total of 92 customers completed the survey over a 10-day period in late August and early September of 2011. Results showed that customers rate food and service attributes as most important when dining out. Attributes related to atmosphere received moderate importance ratings. In using a confirmatory factor analysis, six latent variables emerged: social connectedness, service quality, atmosphere, food quality, healthfulness, and food value. The only statistically significant differences between the factors related to the demographic variables were that females rated the healthfulness of the food options as more important than males, and dinner customers rated the food value as more important than the lunch customers. Implications for restaurant operators and suggestions for further research are discussed.