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The extant literature documents the significance of nostalgia-evoking stimuli in promoting consumer behavior. Despite the prevalent use of nostalgia-evoking stimuli in restaurant service, research on nostalgia-evoking restaurants is significantly lacking. As a result, little is known about customers’ cognitive responses toward nostalgia-themed restaurant stimuli and their influences on customer loyalty behavior. Thus, grounded in an extended stimulus-organism-response model, this study aims to examine the role of nostalgia-evoking restaurant stimuli in explaining an integrated model focusing on nostalgia, in relation to local food consumption value, familiarity with nostalgia-triggering restaurants and loyalty and continued patronage.

The authors collected data from 544 Taiwanese customers at nostalgia-themed restaurants. Using PROCESS (Model 6), the direct and indirect effect of nostalgia-evoking restaurant stimuli on loyalty and continued patronage were examined.

The confirmatory factor analysis results showed that five domains of restaurant attributes (i.e., service staff, exterior and interior design, furniture and tableware, local food and atmosphere) are nostalgia-evoking stimuli. The authors also found that these nostalgia-evoking stimuli significantly affected customer loyalty indirectly, through customers’ consumption value and familiarity.

The results of this study help identify the importance of nostalgia-generating cues in nostalgia-themed restaurants and their roles in postpurchase behaviors. The outcomes contribute to an improved understanding of how to exploit nostalgic sentiments in nurturing diners’ consumption value, maintaining customer loyalty and generating greater profits.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies examining restaurant attributes evoking nostalgia and explaining the mechanism by which nostalgia-evoking stimuli affect consumer behavior.

In a reflection of individuals’ interest in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, nutraceutical restaurants, which provide health benefits, have emerged on the market. However, little is known about the underlying factors and mechanisms of the consumption of nutraceutical foods. Therefore, grounded in an extended cognitive–affective–conative model, this study examines the role of dining motivations and restaurant attributes in explaining an integrated model that focuses on customers’ loyalty formation process.

Data were collected from 893 Chinese customers who had recently dined at traditional Chinese medicine restaurants. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, this study examined the structural relationships among dining motivations, restaurant attributes, customers’ perceived benefits, overall satisfaction, place attachment and revisit intentions.

The results of a confirmatory factor analysis revealed that two main motivations (i.e. health and traditional culture) and five restaurant attributes (i.e. food, service staff food recommendation, service staff service quality, furniture and tableware and atmosphere) are stimuli that influence customers’ perceived benefits. This study also revealed that four types of perceived benefits (functional, emotional, social and epistemic) significantly affect overall satisfaction and place attachment, which determine revisit intentions.

The findings of this study help identify not only important dining motivations and restaurant attributes but also their roles in loyalty formation with respect to traditional Chinese medicine restaurants. Thus, the results contribute to an improved understanding of how to satisfy customers’ dining motivations and efficiently manage restaurant attributes to strengthen customer loyalty.

This study is among the first to simultaneously examine the effects of customer motivation and restaurant attributes and to explain how they affect customer loyalty behaviors at traditional Chinese medicine restaurants.

In the context of increasing concerns about health, nutraceutical restaurants that provide health benefits have emerged in the marketplace. However, customer experiences at these restaurants are poorly understood. This study focused on sensory experiences and examined the underlying mechanism by which they contribute to memorable dining experiences. Grounded in cognitive appraisal theory, this study developed a memorable dining experience model that links sensory stimuli, meaningfulness, novelty, emotions, and behavioral intentions.

Data were collected from 880 Chinese customers who dined at traditional Chinese medicine restaurants and were analyzed via partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results revealed that sensory stimuli contributed to memorable dining experiences through meaningfulness, novelty, and emotions. Furthermore, memorable dining experiences increased behavioral intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth and revisit intentions. Additionally, customers’ gender moderated the effects of sensory stimuli on meaningfulness and novelty.

The findings of this study can be used to identify important sensory stimuli and their roles in delivering memorable dining experiences in traditional Chinese medicine restaurants. Therefore, this study’s findings contribute to an improved understanding of how to efficiently manage sensory stimuli to stimulate memorable experiences for restaurant patrons.

This study tests the influence of sensory stimuli on the memorable dining experiences of customers in China.

The extant gastronomy literature has rarely examined a connection between authentic gastronomic experiences and destinations. Specifically, ethnic enclaves, which are unique gastronomic and cultural destinations providing ethnic cuisine and cultural experiences to visitors, have been under-researched. Thus, this study aims to address this knowledge gap.

Using a 2 (history: long vs short) × 2 (location: Central Business District vs rural; main street vs alleyway) × 2 size/ownership type (big vs small; chain vs independent) between-subjects design, two experiments were conducted using a sample of 557 British consumers to test the effect of history, location and size of ethnic enclaves and ethnic restaurants on consumers’ authentic cultural and gastronomic experiences in a UK context.

In Study 1, ethnic enclave’s size affected consumers’ authentic cultural experiences. In Study 2, restaurants’ history and ownership type positively influenced consumers’ authentic gastronomic experiences. Both studies consistently reported the positive relationship between authentic experiences and behavioural intentions.

For ethnic enclaves, the management team may consider expanding the size of ethnic enclaves to increase consumers’ authentic cultural experience. For those ethnic restaurants within the ethnic enclave, any independent or old ethnic restaurants should actively promote both characteristics in their marketing materials to create a feeling of offering authentic gastronomic experiences to customers.

This study identified important ethnic enclave-related factors and ethnic restaurant-related factors forming consumers’ authentic cultural and gastronomic experiences.

Restaurant operators often use auspicious connotations embedded in the names and shapes of dishes to increase consumers’ purchase intentions. However, the interaction effect of multiple auspicious cues (i.e. food name and shape) on purchase intentions has rarely been examined in the restaurant context. Thus, grounded in processing fluency theory, this study investigates the direct influence of the two-way interaction effect of food name (auspicious vs nonauspicious) and shape (auspicious vs. nonauspicious) on purchase intentions and its indirect influence via perceived auspiciousness and positive emotions.

Utilizing a 2 (food name: auspicious name vs. nonauspicious name) × 2 (food shape: auspicious shape vs. nonauspicious shape) between-subjects design, the authors conducted two experimental studies with 356 Chinese customers. In Study 1, which focused on a main dish, we investigated the two-way interaction effect food name × food shape on purchase intentions. In Study 2, we replicated this experimental study by focusing on a different food type (i.e. dessert) to test the direct and indirect influences of the two-way interaction of food name × food shape on purchase intentions through perceived auspiciousness and positive emotions.

The results reveal that the congruity condition of auspicious names and shapes significantly influences consumers’ purchase intentions. Congruity with auspicious food cues also indirectly affects purchase intentions through consumers’ perceived auspiciousness and positive emotions. These effects were consistently observed in two experimental studies analyzing different dish types (main dish and dessert).

Restaurateurs should consider utilizing auspicious food cues to attract customers. Specifically, they should combine both food name and shape to increase their perceived auspiciousness and sales.

This study tested processing fluency theory using auspicious food cues. This study contributes to the hospitality literature by improving our understanding of the congruence effect by exemplifying the conceptual alignment between food name and food shape.

This paper aims to report that authenticity is a crucial factor in determining consumer behavior. To ensure that customers feel a sense of authenticity, service organizations and researchers must understand the factors that convey perceived authenticity. Therefore, this study uses multiple features of perceived service authenticity (i.e. continuity, consistency, uniqueness, talent, scarcity, honesty and traditional) and examines their effects on positive emotions in a traditional restaurant service context.

A total of 342 surveys were collected using a panel data service in China. This study examined the structural relationships among perceived service authenticity, positive emotions and revisit intention using AMOS. Additionally, a multigroup analysis was conducted to identify the moderating effect of individuals’ psychological traits (i.e. nostalgia proneness).

The results indicated that all service authenticity dimensions except continuity significantly enhance positive emotions. Furthermore, positive emotions significantly enhanced revisit intention. The results also revealed that nostalgia proneness moderates the effects of service authenticity on positive emotions.

The results provide important insights into how to increase customers’ perceived service authenticity and positive emotions.

This research is a pioneering effort to conceptualize a multiple-dimensional structure of the authenticity model and test its appropriateness in a traditional restaurant context. Furthermore, this study is one of the first attempts to develop an authenticity model that links service authenticity, positive emotions, revisit intention and the moderator of nostalgia proneness based on the Mehrabian and Russell model.

This study aims to identify the influences that lead to better memorability of a service by focusing on type of service failure, recovery condition and frequency of occurring.

This study used a quasi-experimental design in which customers answered questions about a restaurant they had recently patronized and then evaluated experimentally generated failure and recovery scenarios. Two follow-up contacts were made (by phone and e-mail) to assess their memory of the imagined service failures stimulated by the scenarios. Participants were asked how clearly and vividly they could recollect the service failure and to indicate their behavioral intentions at the time of recall.

The type of service failure and the subsequent recovery efforts significantly affect whether negative service experiences are memorable. Specifically, individuals showed a higher likelihood of vividly recalling a core service failure than an interactional one. Moreover, service recoveries were found to be helpful in decreasing the memorability of service failures, and that they were effective in decreasing the resulting negative customer behavioral intentions (i.e. switching behaviors and negative word-of-mouth). However, frequently occurred service failures did not significantly influence the memorability of the failures.

The current study suggested what characteristics of service failures and situations lead to strong memorability and significantly affect future behavior. Thus, the findings provide important implications for avoiding and handling the failures that trigger strong memorability.

Previous researchers have emphasized on the importance and urgency of preventing critical service failures. However, it is still unclear what type of service failures and/or factors are critical ones. The current study expands the knowledge by incorporating service failures with memory and investigates the characteristics of memorable service failures, which are likely to be remembered more vividly.

This study aims to address a lack of studies on the attributes of ethnic restaurants that influence customers’ perceptions of authenticity. Particularly, this study extended Gilmore and Pine’s authenticity framework (is the offering true to itself and is the offering what it says it is) by incorporating a servicescape factor (i.e. employees).

This study used a 2 × 2 × 2 between-participants design which examined the effects of using an authentic sauce in a dish, advertising “authenticity” and employing staff from the native culture of the ethnic food on authentic experiences. Follow-up contact was made by phone and mail to assess their memory of ethnic Korean food tried in experimental conditions. Participants were asked how clearly and vividly they could recollect the food experience.

The results showed that all of the tested factors significantly influenced the subjects’ perceived authenticity of the food and recollection of the food experience. However, the authors did not find any significant interaction effects.

This study suggests factors that influence customers’ authentic experiences and memory. Thus, the findings provide important implications for delivering authentic and memorable experiences.

Previous researchers have emphasized the importance and urgency of providing authentic and memorable experiences. However, it is still unclear what specific attributes of ethnic restaurants influence individuals’ perceptions of authenticity and memory.

The service recovery paradox (SRP) refers to a particular effect whereby an excellent recovery can turn angry and frustrated customers into loyal ones. Researchers who have studied the SRP have reported mixed findings, with some providing evidence in its support and others not finding any such evidence. To address this discrepancy, this study aims to investigate the SRP.

This study re-examined the phenomenon of the SRP with a field study and provided further evidence in a subsequent experimental study in which the failure and recovery conditions were carefully manipulated.

The results of this study suggest that the SRP was observed in neither the field study nor the scenario experiment.

This study can influence the current service management of restaurants with regard to service failures in several ways.

This research is a pioneering effort to examine the SRP by conducting both a field study and a scenario experiment.

This paper aims to investigate the corporate-level determinants (i.e. management commitment) of work ability. It also examined whether mid-level contextual variables intensify the relationship between management commitment and the work ability of senior casino dealers.

A three-level hierarchical analysis of data from 432 casino dealers from 16 casinos was performed to determine the proportion of variance in the dependent variable when the explanatory variables were at varying hierarchical levels.

The findings suggest that management commitment has a positive and significant impact on frontline dealers’ work ability. Furthermore, supervisor support and group trust have moderating effects on the relationship between management commitment and dealers’ work ability.

The current study provides important information on how to increase the ability of aging dealer to remain active and learn new skills.

Work ability has received substantial attention from recent studies of human resources because of its close relationship to employee job skills and competencies. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no conceptual model explains the role of work ability role in promoting and updating human resources management practices and policies.