Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
Business Plan Writer · Business Consultant
What Do Restaurant Customers Really Want? Read Your Reviews Like Instructions
Your customers write you a manual every week. Most owners read it like a report card, feel good or bad for a day, and move on.
Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
The Definition
What Do Restaurant Customers Want?
Restaurant customers want a reliable way to get a table, clear information about parking and wait times, food worth recommending, attentive and knowledgeable service, and to be recognized when they return. Customer reviews show that the factors that drive recommendations to others differ from the factors that drive repeat visits.
“A review is not a letter to you. It is a note to the next customer: where to park, when to come, what to order. Read the pile that way and it stops being a report card. It becomes a manual for your restaurant, written by the people who use it.”
Need the answer fast? Read the gold Short Answer boxes and the numbered steps. Want the full picture? Follow Louie Waffles, the big-hearted Labrador who runs Waffle Woofs Bakery & Café, from Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest, as he reads only the angry notes on the community board. The story shows up in a few short gold notes along the way. The study numbers sit in one section, clearly marked.
Get Your Restaurant Plan Written, or Build It Yourself
Lenders want covers, prime cost, and break even before they read the menu. Pick how you want to get there.
Business Consulting
Packed dining room and a thin bank balance? Dr. Paul helps restaurant owners sort out prime cost, cash, staffing, and menu pricing.
See consulting options →Business Plan Writing
FeaturedCovers by shift, prime cost, and break even, built into one plan your lender and landlord can follow. Dr. Paul writes it with you.
Start your plan →Restaurant Business Plan Template
A Word plan and an Excel model built around covers, check size, and food cost, with video tutorials for both.
See the template →Small Business Education
Free guides on funding, financial statements, and running the business, plus Dr. Paul’s plan-writing videos.
Start learning →From Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest
Meet Louie: The Notes on the Board
Some lessons stick better as a story. Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest is his business school told through a forest full of small business owners. Doctor Owl, a dry-witted consultant who lives in the Lone Oak, helps them fix the same problems real owners face. Today he finds Louie Waffles at the community board in the forest square, where customers pin notes about every shop. Louie is reading one with his ears flat.
LOUIE: (holding a crumpled note) Somebody said the wait was long. I feel terrible. Should I hire more help?
DOCTOR OWL: How many notes about Waffle Woofs are on this board?
LOUIE: Lots. I only read the mean ones. The nice ones just make me blush.
DOCTOR OWL: Read me three of the nice ones.
LOUIE: (squinting) “Park by the big stump, not the creek.” “Come before the morning bell or wait.” “Get the Mountain Stack.”
DOCTOR OWL: Those are not compliments, Louie. They are directions. Your customers are writing your guidebook and handing it to strangers.
LOUIE: Then why don’t I have a copy?
An original Fabled Forest moment. Similar stories about Doctor Owl and the forest’s owners are in Marketing for Small Businesses, Book 4 of Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest Business School.
Louie has a decision to make. Keep reading. You’ll see what he does, and why it works for your restaurant too.
Similar stories in Marketing for Small BusinessesDr. Paul’s Fabled Forest Business School, Book 4 See the Books →
The Big Idea
Who Is a Restaurant Review Really Written For?
A comment card is written to you. A survey is written to you. A review is written to the next customer. That changes what it tells you.
It is why reviews are full of parking advice. Nobody complains to a manager about parking. They warn a stranger about it, then tell them where to park instead. Read a stack of reviews as advice from one customer to the next, and it turns into a manual for your own restaurant.
Louie only read the angry notes. The helpful ones, the ones telling the next customer how to have a good visit, he never read at all.
Show the Numbers
What Do Restaurant Reviews Show?
Dr. Paul’s study of 752 customer reviews across 12 restaurants in 12 states counted every mention of the wait, the parking, the food, the staff, and the price, then compared who recommended the restaurant and who said they had come back.
| Finding | What the reviews showed |
|---|---|
| Getting a table | About 1 in 10 reviews discussed reservations, walk-ins, or getting in. They recommended at nearly twice the rate of everyone else. |
| The wait | About 1 in 5 mentioned waiting. Only 2 complained about it. |
| One dish worth the drive | Only 27 named a signature dish. They recommended at 22.2%, against 12.0% for everyone else. |
| Attentive service | Customers describing attentive service mentioned returning at 24.4%, against 8.6% for everyone else. |
| Recognition | 0 of 752 described a restaurant recognizing a returning customer. |
The things that make customers recommend you are not the things that bring them back. Getting in, the room, and a signature dish drive referrals. Attention, the food’s texture, and being remembered drive return visits.
Two Halves
What Gets Customers In, and What Brings Them Back?
The place gets them in
How to book, where to park, the honest wait, a room with one thing worth naming.
The plate and people bring them back
Food described by how it tastes, portions that satisfy, staff who know the menu and check on the table.
Recognition keeps them
A name, a usual order, a “welcome back.” The cheapest loyalty tool, and nobody in the study was using it.
Fixes That Cost Nothing
What Can You Fix This Week?
- 1
Write the parking and booking answer where customers look
Your website, your Google listing, and your door.
Louie’s FixLouie pinned his own note to the board: where to park, when to come, and what to order. Customers stopped having to guess.
- 2
Pick one dish and teach every server to say it
Customers need a sentence they can repeat about you.
- 3
Quote a wait you can hold
The honest number matters more than a short one.
- 4
Set a table check standard
Every table, checked on a schedule. Attention is the strongest return signal in the study.
- 5
Start a regulars list
Name, visit date, usual order.
From Dr. Paul’s Work as a Business Consultant
What a Business Consultant Does With Your Reviews
Most owners react to reviews one at a time. When Dr. Paul works with a restaurant on customers, the reviews get read as a pile and counted. Every mention of the wait, the parking, the staff, and the food.
The counting is where the surprises are. Owners often spend money fixing what customers never complained about, and miss the free fix customers asked for over and over.
Your customers are already writing your marketing plan. Read it as instructions, count it, and act on what comes up most.
From Dr. Paul’s Fabled Forest
What Louie Did Next
A month later, there was a new note on the community board. Louie had written it himself.
LOUIE: (reading it aloud, proud) “Park by the big stump. Come before the morning bell. Get the Mountain Stack. Ask for Louie.”
DOCTOR OWL: And the wait?
LOUIE: Same wait. But now I tell folks how long, and they don’t mind. Turns out they never minded the wait. They minded guessing.
DOCTOR OWL: And the new help you were going to hire?
LOUIE: Didn’t need it. Saved the coins.
The lesson for your restaurant: Read your reviews as instructions to the next customer. Count them, fix what comes up most, and give customers the answers before they have to ask.
In Your Business Plan
How Do Customer Insights Go in Your Business Plan?
Lenders read the marketing section to see if you understand your customer. Show them you do. Related guides: Are Birthday and Celebration Diners Worth Marketing To? and How Do You Train Restaurant Staff on the Menu?.
- 1
Split your marketing plan in two
Getting new customers in, and bringing them back.
- 2
Name your signature dish
The sentence customers will repeat.
- 3
Show your return plan
A regulars list, a service standard, and how you will count second visits.
- 4
Show how you will listen
Reading reviews as data, every month.
This is one piece of the full plan. See How to Write a Restaurant Business Plan for every section, start to finish.
Want to know what your customers are really telling you?Dr. Paul works with restaurant owners to turn reviews into a plan for getting customers in and bringing them back.
Questions
Restaurant Customer Questions
What do customers value most in a restaurant?
Reviews point to a clear way to get a table, honest wait times, food worth recommending, attentive service, and being remembered when they return.
Do restaurant customers mind waiting?
In Dr. Paul’s study of 752 customer reviews across 12 restaurants in 12 states, about 1 in 5 reviews mentioned waiting and only 2 complained. The frustration was not knowing how long the wait would be.
How should a restaurant use online reviews?
Read them as instructions to the next customer, count recurring themes, and fix what comes up most, like parking, booking, and wait information.
What Restaurant Customers Really Want
752 reviews, 12 restaurants, 12 states. Every finding, every fix, and a 30-day Customer Plan.