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It would seem that good food, service, value for money and ambiance are not enough to ensure that a restaurant will get good reviews from customers. It would appear that the weather plays a significant role in how people perceive the food they are served in a restaurant.
It’s a well-known axiom of the restaurant industry that bad weather drives customers away and good spells of sunny weather encourage people out into the streets where they can eat, drink and be merry, and more importantly, spend their hard-earned in a restaurant.
A study of 32 Florida restaurants found that customers left more negative remarks on comment cards on days when it was raining than on days when it was dry.
The study was co-authored by Milos Bujisic, assistant professor of hospitality management at The Ohio State University and Vanja Bogicevic, a visiting assistant professor of hospitality management at Ohio State.
“Restaurant managers may see more than the usual bad reviews on certain days, and it may have nothing to do with the service or the quality of the food,” said Bujisic.
The study looked at different weather variable and looked at correlations to the reviews made by customers at Floridian restaurants. In Florida, high temperatures and humidity can be considered bad weather and have negative impacts on people’s moods and therefore their restaurant reviews.
In another study conducted online, 158 people from around the country who visited a restaurant within the last 24 hours were asked to rate and describe the weather conditions right before their restaurant visit. They also rated their own mood and what kind of “word-of-mouth” review they would give the restaurant – in other words, whether they would recommend the restaurant and tell others positive things about their experience.
Results showed that people who described the weather as more pleasant also rated their mood more positively. Better moods – and not the weather itself – were related to more positive word-of-mouth.
So there you have it. Restaurant staff should take weather into account when it comes to service.
