Yes / With a long history and strong culinary heritage, time-honored restaurants are often associated with the phenomenon of nostalgia. However, research on nostalgia and nostalgic experiences in time-honored restaurants is largely absent. This study built a framework for nostalgic experiences to understand nostalgia triggers as antecedents and consumers’ revisit intention as the outcome. A survey of 366 residents in Beijing and Shanghai, China, revealed that nostalgia triggered by food and service staff significantly evoked consumers’ memories, and the food and restaurant environment stimulated the communitas component of nostalgic experiences. Memory had a positive effect on both communitas and positive emotions, while communitas had a positive effect on positive emotions. Finally, positive emotions resulted in significantly increased revisit intention.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hotel, Restaurant, Institution Management and Dietetics / Ki-Joon Back / Elizabeth B. Barrett / This study attempted to develop a multi-item scale that measures restaurant customers' emotional experiences and has desirable reliability and validity, and to examine the relationships among consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and revisit intention in the full-service restaurant industry. In the process of developing a consumption emotion measurement scale, this study followed Churchill's (1979) paradigm during the early stage and confirmatory factor analytic approach suggested by Gerbing and Anderson (1988) and Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) in the later stage. The scale development process began with a specification of domain of construct, generation of 40 items, and data collection. The collected data were subjected to item refinement (i.e., outlier detection, descriptive and reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis). Four underlying dimensions of consumption emotions with 32 refined items were identified from the data. A new sample of data was collected for additional testing (i.e., reliability and validity). A confirmatory factor analysis using the new data indicated that the finalized measure using categorical dimension approach was unidimensional, reliable, and valid. The results of structural equation modeling supported the criterion validity indicating that the finalized measure behaves as expected in relation to additional construct. In study two, a theoretical framework for understanding the relationships among consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and revisit intention was proposed and tested. A series of modeling comparisons provided a best fit model. A measurement model estimated on the basis of Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) approach tested validity of measures. The results of structural equation modeling using the data from a web-based survey addressed the effect of consumption emotions on satisfaction and revisit intention. The partial/full mediating impact of satisfaction was verified following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggested process. The switching barriers, two positive (i.e., preference and relational investment) and two negative (i.e., switching costs and lack of alternatives), that restaurant customers are likely to perceive were identified through the qualitative approach, using the guidelines suggested by Maxwell (2005). The quantitative approach validated the scale applicability. The moderating role of switching barriers in forming revisit intention was verified by testing for metric invariances. Grouping was done by using K-means cluster analysis. Measurement invariance tests supported full metric/partial metric invariances. Structural invariance tests and invariance tests for a hypothesized path provided the evidence of moderating effect of switching barriers. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the findings were discussed.

Atmospheric theming is the use of the sensory experience in connection to a theme. The purpose of this research is to examine the effects of atmospherics with theming and their effects on customer behavior in food and beverage operations of a theme park. The official research questions developed for this study include: Does the impact of the authenticity of atmospheric theming influence an effect on revisit intention? Does the type of theme (land's theme or venue's theme) influence the effect of visitor revisit intention? These questions guided the current research in previously non-evaluated fields of study. This study used the Mehrabian–Russel (M-R) model to create a new research model. In the current study, atmospheric theming was the stimuli, emotional value was the emotional response, and visitor revisit intentions was the behavioral intention. Restaurant image was added to the model to obtain a cognitive reason.The results from the multiple regression indicated that all hypotheses were accepted. Restaurant image had a positive influence on both authenticity variables, and both authenticity variables had a positive influence on emotional value. Finally, emotional value was found to have a positive influence on revisit intention. These results indicated that atmospheric theming influenced revisit intention through emotional value. Furthermore, the results indicated that when it comes to the different types of themes within a venue, as indicated in the second research question, the venue's theme has a stronger influence on the emotional value than the land's theme.