African Americans’ Image Attributes and Preferences for Ethnic or International Restaurants

Abstract

The last decade has seen an increase in the number of ethnic restaurants in the United States. With the American demographic becoming more diverse and changing food trends, the objective of this study was to investigate African American college students’ food habits, the importance of image attributes and preferences in selecting an ethnic restaurant. The findings revealed a hierarchy of preferences and the most important image attributes were cleanliness and quality of food. Four image attributes discriminated three groups of ethnic restaurant patrons, namely, frequent, less frequent, and more frequent patrons. Marketing implications for foodservice operations is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• African American college students
• ethnic international restaurants
• ethnic cuisine
• food habits
• food preferences
• food image
• food perception