How Does Background Music Affect Dining Duration, Tips and Bill Amounts in Restaurants? A Field Experiment

Influences from external factors can affect decision-makers, preventing them from making decisions in a fully rational manner. Music may serve as one such influential factor in this context. Music is part of our daily lives, and we are exposed to music in numerous places. We designed a field experiment to study the influence of background music on patrons' behavior in restaurants. Specifically, we examine the effect of the music's tempo (slow or fast) on time spent in the restaurant, the bill amount, and the tip size. The results show that patrons in the slow tempo group spent the most time in the restaurant, those in the control group followed next, and the patrons in the fast tempo group were the quickest to leave. However, there are no differences between the groups in bill size. The tips in the fast tempo group were higher than in the control group when controlling for several independent variables. The findings have practical implications for restaurant owners and managers. In busy periods, the restaurant can use fast-tempo music to increase the turnover of tables, because then tables become available for new diners more quickly, contributing more to the restaurant's income compared to tables that occupy the space for a longer duration.