Ute Walter

Drivers of customers’ service experiences : a study in the restaurant industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify, portray and analyse the frequent drivers of customer service experiences as described by customers in their own words – the voice of the customer ...

Restaurant practices – time, planning, knowledge and dreams

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to research on restaurant work, which plays an important role in culinary arts research. The aim of this study was to make visible and elucidate the daily work practices in eight small restaurants in a seasonal tourist destination on the Southeast coast of Sweden. The central methods used were observations and participant observations and interviews, along with an e-mail questionnaire and examination of published information concerning all the restaurants. By means of practice theory, three central elements were used to identify and understand the configuration of the activities involved in daily work in small seasonal restaurants. These three elements, knowledge/competence, technologies/materiality and creation of meaning, formed four practices. The practices identified in this study were managing time and seasons; planning, strategising and controlling; knowing and having skills; and dreams and lifestyle. The conclusion of the study indicates that small restaurant practices may be conflicting, as they involve an extremely time-consuming workload, vague planning and lingering knowledge growth in contrast to the ideas of creativity and development that are a part of the restaurant owners’ dreams and lifestyle.

Making Meals in Small Seasonal Restaurants

ABSTRACT Since restaurateurs can benefit by analyzing the production of meals, particularly with the dominant framework for meal experiences, the five aspects meal model (FAMM), this study examined FAMM’s relevance as an analytical tool for understanding meal production via field observations and interviews in eight small restaurants in a rural destination in Sweden. Results showed that FAMM’s aspect of the management control system and the factor of time are critical to the entire meal production process in restaurants. This article closes with a discussion of FAMM’s usefulness as a qualitative checklist for restaurateurs.

Deriving Value from Customer Based Meal Experiences—Introducing a Postmodern Perspective on the Value Emergence from the Experience of the Commercial Meal

ABSTRACT This exploratory article examines the role of the meal experience in the context of the postmodern conditions of marketing as well as customer value emergence and suggests a novel perspective on the commercial meal experience as being customer based. It focuses on how value is idiosyncratically formed, for the customer, based on what the customer experiences. The article draws attention to the need of changing perspectives from the producer to the customer to gain understanding on how value emerges for the customer within the commercial meal experience. It also presents the need for a dynamic understanding of the meal experience and argues that the current paradigm of understanding the meal is lacking due to it being an a priori construct.