Mae Altarac, Chloe Chang, Alyssa Cheung, Larissa Li, Tiffany Lieu
Societal expectations affect nearly every aspect of our daily lives, even extending as far as what we choose to include in restaurant reviews. Although the main purpose of reading reviews is to learn about the restaurant itself, researchers can also learn about patterns of stereotypes based on the content of reviews. In our study, we aim to explore whether the inherent biases in reviews are influenced by expectations of the restaurant’s cuisine and price point. The intersection between culture and restaurant reviews has been informally explored extensively on social media. For instance, TikTok user RocketJump (2022), in his viral video, made the claim that 3.5 stars is the ideal “sweet spot” for authentic Chinese food – potentially reflecting different expectations across cultures. Guided by three hypotheses, our research found that Chinese restaurants at higher price points were more likely to receive negative reviews than American restaurants while the reverse is true for cheaper restaurants. In addition, we found patterns in reviews indicating that Chinese restaurants tend to focus more on food quality than American restaurants, and that reviews for more expensive restaurants focused more on service in comparison to cheaper restaurants. Price and cuisine greatly affected lexical decisions when it came to reviewing restaurants, reflecting preconceived biases reviewers held.
Introduction and Background
As our society becomes more globalized, intercultural exchanges have increasingly permeated people’s everyday lives. Some of the most prevalent sites for such exchanges are restaurants, for which popular review websites like Yelp provide a vast pool of data to study. Existing studies on Yelp reviews focus on factors within the reviewer that influence the content of the review. For instance, a study on Mexican restaurant reviews linked a focus on authenticity in the reviews with a desire to seem worldly (Gottlieb, 2015). While this research establishes motivation for users leaving reviews, there is little discussion about how these differences manifest themselves in reviews based on the cuisines of restaurants. Additionally, as a general trend, cultural restaurants are the targets of more othering language in reviews by people from outside the culture (Mkono, 2011). Within the broad category of cultural restaurants, Chinese restaurants, in particular, have experienced an increase in negative reviews since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (Kim & Kam, 2023). Since 2020, Chinese restaurants have become an increasingly necessary field of study to explore the effects of the pandemic on discrimination. This research project attempts to fill a gap in the literature by exploring the research question: Does the cultural identity and price point of a restaurant impact the consumer’s reviews of the establishment? Through analysis of reviews, we examine how word choice and content are guided by cuisine.
Methods
We compiled Yelp reviews from Chinese and American restaurants in Westwood in Los Angeles, California in a similar manner to existing studies (Gottlieb, 2015). In total, we selected eight restaurants to study: two Chinese restaurants and two American restaurants from the $-$$ range on Yelp, and two Chinese restaurants and two American restaurants from the $$$-$$$$ range. To maintain consistency and ensure sufficient data, we selected the most popular restaurants in these categories from Yelp’s database. By sampling from multiple price points, we aimed to mitigate the influence of price on any culturally-related disparities in restaurant reviews.
Data was gathered from a four-year period (2020-2024) to reduce year-to-year variations and outdated reviews. Furthermore, we focused on data from 2020 onwards as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown to have a negative impact on the reviews of many Chinese restaurants (Kim & Kam, 2023). Data prior to this time range could skew results due to discrepancies in perceptions of Chinese restaurants before and after the start of the pandemic.
Reviews were categorized as negative if they fell within the 1 to 2-star range on Yelp and positive if they fell within the 4 or 5-star range. Utilizing content analysis, a coder read through reviews and tallied all mentions of comments from each of the following categories: food quality, service quality, cleanliness, ambiance, and value.
For our main and second hypothesis, we controlled for the variable of price by aggregating and comparing reviews of Chinese and American restaurants within the same price range, either lower-priced ($-$$) or higher-priced ($$$-$$$$). To test the third hypothesis, we compared reviews from the four expensive restaurants with those from the four cheap restaurants with the selected sample.
Results and Analysis
Hypothesis I, which proposes that Chinese restaurants are more likely to receive negative reviews compared to American restaurants, is partially supported by our data. We compared the proportion of negative reviews for Chinese and American restaurants within the same price range, calculating this by dividing the number of negative reviews by the total number of reviews for each restaurant type. The results, shown in Figure 1, indicate that in the cheap price range, Chinese restaurants received a lower proportion of negative reviews (0.09) than American restaurants (0.24), contrary to our hypothesis. However, in the expensive price range, Chinese restaurants received a higher proportion of negative reviews (0.55) compared to American restaurants (0.22), which supports the hypothesis. With p-values of less than .05, both of these results are statistically significant. In addition, it is worth noting that American restaurants had a relatively consistent proportion of negative reviews across different price ranges, whereas Chinese restaurants saw a higher proportion of negative reviews at higher prices. This aligns with Roest and Rindfleisch’s (2010) finding that people are more critical of expensive restaurants, but our data indicates that this increased scrutiny specifically applies to Chinese restaurants but not American restaurants.
Figure 1. Proportion of negative reviews by restaurant types and price range Hypothesis II, which is that all reviews of Chinese restaurants will tend to emphasize
Hypothesis II, which is that all reviews of Chinese restaurants will tend to emphasize food quality more than those of American restaurants, is supported. Reviews were split into positive (4-5 stars) and negative (1-2 stars) and sorted into five categories: Food Quality, Service, Cleanliness, Ambiance, and Value. We compared the proportion of each category for both positive and negative reviews. Figure 2 presents the proportion of each category in positive reviews. Positive reviews for all four types of restaurants emphasize food quality the most. The proportions of food quality in positive reviews for both cheap (0.91) and expensive (0.91) Chinese restaurants are higher than those for cheap (0.8) and expensive (0.73) American restaurants. Figure 3 displays the proportion of each category in negative reviews. Proportions of negative reviews focusing on food quality are higher for cheap (0.89) and expensive (0.64) Chinese restaurants compared to cheap (0.39) and expensive (0.45) American restaurants. At both the positive and negative levels, the p-values are less than .05 and are thus significant.
Figure 2. Proportion of positive review categories by restaurant types. The solid lines represent Chinese restaurants; the dashed lines represent American restaurants
Figure 3. Proportion of negative review categories by restaurant types. The solid lines represent Chinese restaurants; the dashed lines represent American restaurants
Hypothesis III, which states that all reviews of high-end restaurants will place a greater emphasis on service compared to less expensive establishments, is supported. We compared the same sample of restaurants at the two different price points and calculated the proportion of reviews focused on service for all restaurants studied. As illustrated in Figure 4, expensive Chinese restaurants have higher proportions of both negative (0.38) and positive (0.62) reviews emphasizing service compared to cheap Chinese restaurants, which have proportions of 0.28 for negative reviews and 0.43 for positive reviews. The same pattern is observed in American restaurants, although the difference in proportions across the cheap and expensive American restaurants is not as pronounced. Nonetheless, with p-values all less than .05, these results are significant.
Figure 4. Proportion of positive and negative service reviews by restaurant types Discussion & Conclusion
Human perception and communication are shaped by existing stereotypes and preconceived notions of biases upheld by social groups. The results of our study indicate that, within the restaurant industry, the cultural background of a restaurant plays a significant role in determining the type of reviews it receives, particularly in the context of price. Our data suggests that consumers may hold different standards for high-end Chinese restaurants, potentially influenced by societal expectations that “authentic” ethnic restaurants will be “dirtier” (Gottlieb, 2015). Additionally, our data indicates that food quality is a dominant theme in reviews for Chinese restaurants, regardless of whether the review is positive or negative – suggesting that patrons of Chinese restaurants may prioritize food quality more when evaluating their dining experience. Moreover, the focus on service in reviews of high-end restaurants, regardless of cuisine, underscores the critical role that service quality plays in shaping consumer perceptions in upscale dining contexts (Aktaş Polat, 2022). With the proliferation of these reviews, the corresponding stereotypes about ethnic restaurants, cultural focuses, and expectations based on price level are continually reinforced and spread. Not only do these findings have implications for the patronage of restaurants, but they also impact how cultural institutions and groups are perceived and treated. Future research examining how these patterns and trends exist across dining establishments in different regions could increase awareness of social biases embedded within reviewing sites like Yelp, fostering a more culturally sensitive society.
References
Aktaş Polat, S. (2022). Analysis of fine dining restaurant reviews for perception of Customers Restaurant Service Quality. Journal of Tourism and Gastronomy Studies. https://doi.org/10.21325/jotags.2022.974
Gottlieb, D. (2015). “Dirty, authentic…delicious”: Yelp, Mexican restaurants, and the appetites of Philadelphia’s new middle class. Gastronomica, 15(2), 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2015.15.2.39
Kim, E., & Kam, C. (2023). Othering in everyday life: Anti-Chinese bias in the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Opinion Quarterly, 87(3), 733–748. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad035
Mkono, M. (2011). The othering of food in touristic eatertainment: A netnography. Tourist Studies, 11(3), 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797611431502
Roest, H., & Rindfleisch, A. (2010). The influence of quality cues and typicality cues on restaurant purchase intention. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 17(1), 10–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2009.08.007
Wong, F. [@rocketjump]. (2022, September 12). Why I only go to Chinese Restaurants with 3.5 star ratings [Video]. TikTok.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTLoh5Sqp/