Exploring vegetarian fine dining experience

Vegetarianism is increasingly popular among health and environmentally conscious consumers, but despite growing competition in the full-service restaurants and fine dining restaurant sectors, few studies have examined customer experiences and emotions associated with vegetarian fine dining restaurants. This study explored dimensions of experience, emotion, and customer response at vegetarian fine dining restaurants according to the stimulus organism response (SOR) paradigm by applying netnography to online restaurant reviews. Results were that vegetarian fine dining experience is more associated with fine dining rather than vegetarian full-service restaurant. Food quality is the leading dimension for creating a satisfactory dining experience, especially food taste, followed by service quality and atmosphere. Attributes such as food appealing to meat eaters and accommodating special need were added to satisfy vegetarian fine dining restaurant customers. Product taste and food presentation principally arouse stimulation emotion, leading to ultimate satisfaction. Customers recommend and repeat patronage after high satisfaction. These findings offer theoretical and practical implications of knowledge about vegetarian fine dining experience and emotions, applicable to other restaurants ranks and by personnel in marketing, restaurant anagement, and creating satisfactory customer experiences.