The congruity between social factors and the theme of an ethnic restaurant: Its impact on the customer’s perceived authenticity and behavioural intentions

Consumers are eager to experience authentic food and culture in ethnic restaurants. In addition to the verified antecedents of perceived authenticity, such as food and environment-related attributes, restaurant authenticity studies have recently started to examine the effect of the social factors of ethnic restaurants, such as the employees and other customers, on customers’ authenticity perceptions. Drawing from the congruity theory, the current study moves a step further to identify that the congruity among employees’ ethnic appearances, other customers’ ethnic appearances, and the ethnic restaurant’s theme, as well as customers’ knowledge of the ethnic cuisine, influence customers’ authenticity perceptions. This study offers suggestions to ethnic restaurants to increase the customers’ perceived authenticity and behavioural intentions.