Restaurant Selection in Dublin

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the selection process used by consumers when choosing a restaurant to dine. This study examined literature on consumer behaviour, restaurant selection, and decision-making, underpinning the contention that service quality is linked to the consumer’s selection of a restaurant. It supports the utility theories that consumers buy bundles of attributes that simultaneously combined represent a certain level of service quality at a certain price. The findings of the research displayed a preference by Dublin consumers for Italian and Chinese styled restaurants and identified quality of the food, type of food, cleanliness of the restaurant, location and the reputation of the restaurant as the key decision variables/attributes used by consumers to select restaurants. The study also established that the importance of the attributes changed, depending on the consumer’s age, prior experience, their mood and the occasion involved.