Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 15, 2026

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Associations between a voluntary restaurant menu designation initiative and patron purchasing behavior
Erica T Sosa1, Lesli Biediger-Friedman, Martha Banda
11University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA.
Background:
Restaurant initiatives provide an efficient opportunity to impact large numbers of patrons. The purpose of this study is to measure patron purchasing behaviors during the ¡Por Vida! menu designation initiative.
Method:
This study used a cross-sectional design and survey data to assess 23 restaurants throughout Bexar County and 152 restaurant patrons. The Patron Awareness Questionnaire assessed if patrons noticed the logo; believed nutrition, cost, and taste were important in making purchasing decisions; and purchased a ¡Por Vida! item. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data.
Results:
Most (93.4%) patrons considered taste very important when deciding what to eat. Cost was very important to 63.8% and nutrition was very important to 55.9% of the sample. The strongest predictors of purchasing a ¡Por Vida! item were the patrons' ages being between 18 and 35 years (odds ratio = 1.474; confidence interval = 0.017, 0.812; p < .05) and if patrons saw the logo (odds ratio = 4.327; confidence interval = 1.696-11.036; p < .01).
Discussion/Conclusion:
Menu logo designation initiatives can potentially influence patron purchasing behaviors among a segment of the population when the logo is visible.
Related Concept Videos
Social Proof
Conditioned Taste Aversion
A notable characteristic of conditioned taste aversion is that it often requires only a single exposure...
Routes of Persuasion
Factorial Design
Confirmation Biases
Taste Buds and Receptors

