No abstract

Preparing, planning and serving meals require several important steps before you can enjoy a meal. The meal takes place in a room ( room ), where the consumer meets waiters and other consumers ( meeting ), and where dishes and drinks ( products ) are served. Backstage there are several rules, laws and economic and management resources ( management control system ) that are needed to make the meal possible and make the experience an entirety as a meal ( entirety -expressing an atmosphere ). These five factors are the major ones for developing meal service in restaurants, and together form the Five Aspects Meal Model (FAMM). Several studies have shown that the context of a meal is important for the acceptance and consumption of a meal. Accordingly, the context has to include the food product itself, the consumer and the environment. These three factors need to be considered in an integrated manner, because they affect each other. A qualitative study of restaurant consumers found that there are at least eight main categories of importance for the experience of the meal: restaurant atmosphere, core items of consumption, restaurant scene, personal service encounter, staff quality, visitors, restaurant decision process and individual circumstances. These categories can easily be related to the 'Five Aspects Meal Model'. The essence of each factor is dependent upon different forms of knowledge, such as science, practical-productive, aesthetical and ethical.

This is an exploratory paper where the main idea is to develop an analysis of dining as a multidimensional experience. In order to assess the relative importance of various aspects of restaurant services, customers were asked to estimate their willingness to pay for six aspects of the dining experience: food, service, fine cuisine, restaurant interior, good company and other customers. Customers were asked to evaluate an ideal restaurant experience as well as their latest restaurant experience. Thus the actual evaluation could be compared with an ideal value to explore where restaurants have opportunities to enhance customers’ restaurant experiences. Results clearly indicate that social needs are important for customers at evening restaurants whereas physiological needs dominate for customers at lunch restaurants.

No abstract

No abstract