What draws you to a restaurant: social experience and a ‘healthy menu’

WASHINGTON - A new study has found that two factors come into play while deciding a restaurant you would like to go back to - the social experience and the availability of healthy menu options.

John Antun at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and his colleagues developed a 20-item scale called DinEX that predicts whether diners will like a restaurant and return to it.

“Food, service and atmosphere have always been critical factors in a restaurant’s success, but recent literature suggests restaurants have become a significant social outlet for people,” said Antun.

“And our research showed us diners also rank ‘health’ high among the factors that will determine whether or not they’ll return to a restaurant.”

According to him, DinEX can be an important tool for real estate professionals seeking the efficacious placement of restaurant properties and businesspeople when tough economic conditions have forced people to curtail dining out.

“This small number of items will allow the scale to be readily utilized in almost any foodservice setting and, as such, be more willingly accepted by a greater percentage of the foodservice industry for which it was conceived,” Antun said.

Their research is being published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Foodservice Business Research. (ANI)