investigated in this study were food safety, price fairness, customer satisfaction, and customer revisit intention.

This research followed a quantitative approach. Data were collected from 291 customers that had previously

experienced dining in full-service restaurants in Malaysia through an online platform using a Google Form. The

gathered information was entered into SPSS as coded data and subjected to partial least squares analysis with

SmartPLS 3.0. The findings confirmed food safety and price fairness do not have any significant influence on

customer revisit intention towards a full-service restaurant. On the other hand, the results of this study show

that food safety and price fairness have a positive and significant influence on customer satisfaction. Also,

customer satisfaction positively and significantly influences customers' intentions to revisit. Finally, the

analysis confirmed that customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between food safety and price fairness

with customers' revisit intentions towards full-service restaurants in Malaysia. Price fairness was found to have

Received: March 29, 2023. Revised: August 17, 2023. Accepted: September 8, 2023. Published: September 15, 2023.

1 Introduction

One of the key industries that have made a

significant contribution to Malaysia's economic

growth is the restaurant industry, which includes

full-service restaurants, cafes and bars, street stalls,

fast food, self-service cafeterias, and home-based

delivery. The multicultural background of Malaysia,

with its distinctive fusion of foods, has also aided in

environment by adopting marketing strategies that

take into account their needs, resulting in increased

satisfaction and repeat business. However, the

recent global COVID-19 outbreak has significantly

hurt the restaurant industry. The government has

opportunities for restaurant operators to recover

their businesses after a long period of closure. For

the full-service restaurants, this would be a great

opportunity for the operators to increase their

profitability in the market, especially during an

uncertain period such as the present COVID-19

pandemic. Retaining customers is essential since it

immediately affects how the restaurant runs, [3], as

consumers are a business's source of income and

The majority of consumers do not think about the

safety level of food prepared when selecting a

restaurant, [6]. The majority of Malaysians prioritise

and place a high value on food taste over food

safety; consequently, Malaysians have a poor level

of public awareness regarding food safety, [7]. Food

safety is crucial in the restaurant industry because

the restaurant marks the end of the food supply

network before it is consumed by the consumer. A

Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) in 2019 found

cases have been showing a downward trend, there is

still a need to ensure food safety, as it has

significant consequences for public health, [5].

Therefore, restaurant operators must prioritise food

safety since it can lead to a decline in customer

loyalty, a loss of consumer trust, public health

compliance requirements, and expensive legal fees,

[9]. In addition to providing hygienic and superb

food, the reasonable price charged may impact

customer satisfaction with the restaurants and

profitability while working with constrained

resources. As a result, it is necessary to determine

factors that consumers deem significant when

revisiting full-service restaurants. Consequently, this

study's goal is to analyse dual purposes. By

conceptualising and analysing a framework (Fig. 1)

that offers a better understanding of the impact of

food safety and price fairness on consumer

satisfaction and revisiting intention, the main goal of

full-service restaurants. Additionally, the current

study offers significant insights to restaurant

operators that will help them focus their efforts in

ways that will satisfy their customers and provide

them with a competitive edge. In this study, the

stimulus-organization-Response theory (SOR) will

be used to examine the association between food

safety, satisfaction, and customers' intentions to

return to a full-service restaurant. Besides that, the

equity theory was used to explain the connection

Hypotheses Development

This study is conducted based on the framework

developed according to the Stimulus-Organism-

Response (SOR) Theory, [25], and Equity Theory

created by Adams in 1965, [11]. SOR is a well-

established research framework that has been

broadly applied to learn consumer behavior, [26].

The SOR Theory aids in the understanding of the

to act in a hedonistic manner, such as the quality of

products, prices, packages, or promotions, [27]. The

inner processing may be conscious or unconscious,

customers, restaurants play a significant role in the

chain from farm to fork, [34]. In judging the level of

food safety, customers only rely on the visible cues

in the food service establishments, [33], as all the

foods are prepared by the food handlers. Therefore,

it is important for the food handlers to safely

prepare the foods for consumption as any outbreak

undermines the food sector by causing people to

stop buying its products. Instead of dining out,

satisfaction was found to be positively influenced by

consumer views of restaurant food safety.

decisions, customers will frequently compare prices,

and when consumers have faith in the price to be

realistic, they are more likely to be satisfied, [38],

willing to repurchase the product, and more likely to

recommend it to other people, [18]. In contrast,

unfair prices unfavorably affect the revisit intentions

of the customers, [18], [39]. Consumers frequently

of a certain brand's goods or services are fair,

adequate, or justified. Price fairness is important to

consider, as honest and fair prices prevent customers

from switching and negative word of mouth, [40]. A

study by, [11], found that price fairness positively

influences restaurants’ customer revisit intention in

phase has determined that the measurement model is

accurate and valid can the second step begin. In the

measurement model phase, a confirmatory factor

analysis (CFA) was initially carried out to see if the

observed variables accurately reflected the predicted

latent constructs (factors) using the covariance

matrix. The measurement's reliability for constructs

with reflective indicators (i.e., food safety, price,

and revisit intention) was examined using

by evaluating the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF),

convergent validity through redundancy analysis,

and the values of outer weights. Once the

measurement model was verified, the structural

model was then investigated using the bootstrapping

procedure to test the hypotheses. The statistical

analysis for this study was carried out using the

software packages SPSS 26 and SmartPLS 3.0.

measurement model. The study, [58], identified two

categories of measurement models. The first type

of measurement model is the reflective construct, in

which observable items are indicators of latent

variables. The formative construct is the second type

cutoff point of 0.50, ensuring convergent validity

was attained, [62].

The level of item differentiation between

constructs that assess different concepts is known as

discriminate validity. Discriminant Validity occurs

when several items converge on one construct while

also being negatively correlated with opposing

constructs, [58]. By looking at the correlations

between the measurements of the probable

as indicated in Table 2.

research, customer satisfaction is caused by four

Table 4 shows the t-values were higher than the

critical values to establish significant outer weights

at the alpha 0.05 level of significance.

evidence that food safety has a significant impact on

revisit intention (β=0.090, t-value = 1.171, p>0.05).

In contrast, food safety positively and significantly

influenced satisfaction (= 0.303, t-value = 3.3.852,

p<0.05). Price fairness was likewise shown to have

no discernible effect on revisit intention, with a t-

value of 1.270 and β=1.103 at a p-value of 0.05.

Other than that, satisfaction was positive and

significantly influenced by price fairness (=0.579,

t-value=7.480 at p<0.05). Lastly, satisfaction had a

role of satisfaction as a mediator variable in the

compared to price fairness, suggesting that food

safety is not the most important factor concerning

customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction was

also found to have a strong and significant positive

influence on revisit intention. Thus, customer

satisfaction is an important factor that keeps

customers from revisiting full-service restaurants. In

contrast, food safety and price fairness were found

to have no significant influence on customer revisit

fair will be satisfied and revisit the restaurants in the

future. Increasing consumer awareness and

education about food safety is important in ensuring

customers have adequate knowledge to protect

themselves from any food-borne illnesses caused by

lapses in preparing food at restaurants. Apart from

that, frequent monitoring by government officials in

when dining out. If they perceive an unfair price

being charged, they will not hesitate to switch to

another restaurant. Nevertheless, even with the high

protected.