How Wine Lists Can Boost Restaurants Online Rating - An exploratory study from German Michelin Restaurants

This research aims to examine how restaurant features, including wine list features – such as price, origin, and wine list size – can influence upscale restaurant rating. The data of this study come from 338 German Michelin Guide restaurant, collected from the Michelin Guide website, TripAdvisor and online wine lists. An OLS regression was used to evaluate the impact of restaurant attributes on rating. Our findings show that customers assign higher ratings to restaurants with some specific features. It exists a positive relationship between the food menu and rating, with the notable exception of top prices restaurants, similarly, restaurants located in big cities receive higher ratings. Moreover, restaurants with a high number of wines included in the wine list tend to receive lower ratings. Notably, also restaurants with a sustainability award (Michelin Green Star) tend to receive negative ratings. Similarly, wine prices shown an influence on rating, displaying a tendency in customer to give higher rating to restaurants offering a higher price in the low range, and to give lower ratings to restaurants which offer lower prices in the top price range for wines. This study highlights how wine lists features may impact on customer ratings, uncovering the role of wine list in the customer experience in upscale restaurants. Finally, insights into wine lists pricing and diversity can help managers to refine wine list decisions and pricing strategies to have a better performance in terms of customer satisfaction and ratings.