Assessing the Impact of Ratings, Cuisines, Facilities, and Operating Hours on Restaurant Type Classification

The dining out experience has become a part and parcel of urban living especially in high-population zones like Connaught Place, where the concentration of restaurants and cafes is very high. The current paper aims at assessing whether the operational and structural characteristics, i.e. restaurant ratings, cuisine diversity, facilities, and opening hours can be effectively used to determine whether a dining establishment is operated as an independent organization or a part of a chain. The analysis used probit regression models in analyzing the statistical significance of independent predictors and the interaction effects using a quantitative, cross-sectional design of secondary data of 118 restaurants. It was found that ratings and facilities were statistically insignificant predictors of restaurant type but in the interaction models, the cuisine diversity (p = 0.048) and cuisine × opening hours interaction (p = 0.032) were significant whereas the cuisine x opening hours two way interaction was nearly significant (p = 0.086) meaning that there were subtle operational patterns among chain restaurants. These findings demonstrate subtle operational forms among chain restaurants but highlight the low predictive ability of operational variables in isolation to predict the format of a restaurant. This paper therefore highlights the importance of including wider strategic and contextual considerations in order to understand the classification of restaurants better.