Can nostalgia-themed stimuli predict customer loyalty and continued patronage?

Purpose The extant literature documents the significance of nostalgia-evoking stimuli in promoting consumer behavior. Despite the prevalent use of nostalgia-evoking stimuli in restaurant service, research on nostalgia-evoking restaurants is significantly lacking. As a result, little is known about customers’ cognitive responses toward nostalgia-themed restaurant stimuli and their influences on customer loyalty behavior. Thus, grounded in an extended stimulus-organism-response model, this study aims to examine the role of nostalgia-evoking restaurant stimuli in explaining an integrated model focusing on nostalgia, in relation to local food consumption value, familiarity with nostalgia-triggering restaurants and loyalty and continued patronage. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data from 544 Taiwanese customers at nostalgia-themed restaurants. Using PROCESS (Model 6), the direct and indirect effect of nostalgia-evoking restaurant stimuli on loyalty and continued patronage were examined. Findings The confirmatory factor analysis results showed that five domains of restaurant attributes (i.e., service staff, exterior and interior design, furniture and tableware, local food and atmosphere) are nostalgia-evoking stimuli. The authors also found that these nostalgia-evoking stimuli significantly affected customer loyalty indirectly, through customers’ consumption value and familiarity. Practical implications The results of this study help identify the importance of nostalgia-generating cues in nostalgia-themed restaurants and their roles in postpurchase behaviors. The outcomes contribute to an improved understanding of how to exploit nostalgic sentiments in nurturing diners’ consumption value, maintaining customer loyalty and generating greater profits. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies examining restaurant attributes evoking nostalgia and explaining the mechanism by which nostalgia-evoking stimuli affect consumer behavior.