Does crowdedness affect consumers’ food consumption and nutrients intake in restaurant environments? A cross-city analyses from China

Abstract

Prior research has documented that crowdedness or high-density environments relate to stress and defensive responses of consumers, including reduced satisfaction and avoidance motivations from laboratory evidence. The current study builds on the results of previous studies to investigate how crowdedness may influence consumers’ food spending and choice in natural restaurant settings. Through collaboration with a major restaurant chain in China, we gained access to a proprietary dataset that covers over 3.8 million actual dining orders made in 2015 and 2016. Applying a high-dimensional fixed effects model, we demonstrate that high levels of physical density can provoke higher food spending and nutrients ordered in restaurant environments, and the impact is robust across subsamples and measures of physical density. Cross-city analyses illustrate heterogeneous responses of customers to physical density, which can be partly explained by cultural differences. Heterogeneity analyses illustrate that customers with lower per person spending are affected more by elevated levels of physical density. Additionally, we show that the effect of physical density can be moderated by the size of dining parties.