70 restaurant survey questions

As the old saying goes, the customer is always right. That’s why customer feedback is critical to maintaining a successful restaurant. Not only does it help you understand your customers’ experiences, but it also helps you make sure minor problems don’t grow into one-star online reviews.

A restaurant survey is one of the most efficient ways to gain valuable insights and improve customer satisfaction. These surveys ask customers about the menu, facility, service, overall guest experience — or all of the above. Gathering this information will help you further develop your business plan to keep your customers coming back again and again.

Why gather restaurant feedback?

Your customers’ opinions can make or break your restaurant’s success. That’s why it’s so important to regularly gather restaurant feedback directly from customers. Feedback helps you identify problem areas in your service, food, or atmosphere that you can improve before they become larger issues. Restaurant feedback can also identify areas where you’re going above and beyond in your customers’ eyes — which you can then highlight to draw in further clientele.

But how your restaurant collects feedback will determine the honesty, effectiveness, and utility of each response; it’s important to use the right tactics at the right time.

Gathering customer feedback

Having a face-to-face conversation with every customer who walks through the door simply isn’t realistic. Instead, you can obtain their feedback through a survey. For years, restaurant owners used comment cards to get feedback. Now, though, technology offers more effective ways to gather data efficiently.

Digital customer feedback is a simple and effective way to learn more about your customers’ dining experience. For example, you might send a digital survey link via email or a text when the person receives a digital receipt. You can also share restaurant survey questions on your website or social media platforms.

The benefits of restaurant surveys

Restaurant surveys are a great way to collect honest, helpful information about what your business is doing right and wrong. Here’s what you could gain by regularly employing restaurant surveys in your establishment:

• Enhanced brand loyalty and reputation: Offering customers the chance to share their opinions can make them feel valued and increase their positive connection to your restaurant.
• Improved customer satisfaction: Collecting customer feedback allows you to both implement positive change based on their suggestions and identify the parts of your restaurant experience that keep customers coming back. Making improvements where necessary and reinforcing what already works can improve your customers’ overall experience.
• Fewer negative reviews: Restaurant surveys allow you to identify issues before they turn into public complaints. Surveys offer an avenue for disgruntled customers to channel their feedback to you directly rather than taking to the internet to air their issues for all to see.
• Opportunities for improvement: Surveys help you find your restaurant’s weaknesses so you can make changes to reduce negative feedback and improve your overall success.
• Menu optimization: If you’re looking for ways to improve, expand, or pare down your menu options, restaurant surveys offer the chance to get honest feedback about what’s working and what’s not.
• Staff performance evaluation: As an employer, you can use restaurant survey feedback to see how well your staff perform their duties. From kitchen staff to servers, customer feedback can offer a new perspective that helps you identify star or poor performers.

The key to unlocking all these benefits is arming your surveys with the best questions possible, covering everything from general experience to owner-specific issues.

Types of restaurant survey questions

Gathering useful feedback is a matter of asking the right restaurant survey questions. Use a mix of open-ended questions and multiple-choice questions so customers can provide clear, quantitative feedback while also having a chance to share their specific experiences. Limit yes-no questions, because the answers don’t provide actionable data.

Keep the survey to a few essential questions. When a customer feedback survey is too long, most people won’t take the time to read all the questions. Decide which questions are most applicable to your current business needs. Then, consider rotating the questions in the future so you can get different types of feedback throughout the year.

Since every restaurant is unique, no two surveys will be the same. You need to consider the unique offerings of your business to determine which survey questions will prove most valuable. You can start with these ideas.

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General restaurant survey questions for guests

• How did you hear about us?
• How often do you visit our restaurant?
• How likely are you to return?
• How likely are you to recommend our restaurant to a friend?
• How can we better serve you in the future?
• What was your favorite part of your experience?
• What was your least favorite part of your experience?
• On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your overall experience?
• What brought you to our restaurant?
• Do you have any other feedback to share?

Restaurant food quality survey questions

• What did you like about the menu?
• What did you dislike about the menu?
• Is there anything you would like to see on the menu?
• Was there any part of the menu that was confusing or underwhelming?
• How does our menu compare to other restaurants you frequent?
• Was the preparation of your meal satisfactory?
• If you have dietary restrictions, did the restaurant accommodate those needs?
• Were there any mistakes made on your order? If so, were they corrected when mentioned to your server?
• Approximately how long did you wait for your food to arrive after ordering?
• How would you rate the quality of your food overall?

Customer service survey questions

• Who was your server today?
• Was the service welcoming and friendly?
• How did you feel about the speed of service?
• Did our staff meet your needs?
• How easy was the payment process?
• How long did it take for you to be seated?
• How would you rate your service on a scale of 1-5?
• Are there any improvements you would make to our service?
• Was there anything your server did that stood out to you, either positively or negatively?
• How did your service compare to other restaurant experiences?

• Restaurant facilities survey questions
• How was the music selection in the restaurant for you?
• How was the music volume?
• How would you rate the cleanliness of the bathrooms? 
• How would you rate the cleanliness of the dining area?
• How would you rate the cleanliness of the dishware?
• How family-friendly is our restaurant?
• How comfortable was the seating?
• Was there enough seating?
• Were you satisfied with the restaurant’s ambiance?
• How accessible were our facilities to people with disabilities?

Restaurant survey questions to gather reservation process feedback

• How satisfied were you with our reservation process?
• How easy was it for you to reserve a table?
• If you made specific requests for your reservation, were they completed by our staff?
• What parts of our reservation process would you change, if any?
• How would you rate our reservation process on a scale of 1-5?
• How likely are you to recommend our reservation process to a friend?
• Was there any part of our reservation process that was confusing or frustrating?
• Do you prefer to make your reservations online or over the phone?
• What does our reservation process do better than other restaurants you’ve booked with previously?
• What features do other restaurants you’ve booked with previously use in their reservation process that you’d like to see added to ours?

Restaurant take-out and delivery survey questions

• How would you rate your delivery experience on a scale of 1-5?
• How would you describe your take-out experience?
• Was your food ready to pick up at the estimated time?
• Did your delivery arrive in the estimated time window?
• Was your food acceptably fresh when your delivery arrived?
• Did your delivery driver forget anything in your order?
• Was everything in your takeout order correct?
• Was the takeout staff friendly?
• Did your delivery driver follow any specific instructions you provided? (Contactless delivery, drop-off location, etc.)
• If you used a third-party delivery service app (DoorDash, Grubhub, etc), how was your experience ordering from our restaurant?

Survey questions for restaurant owners

• Did you find our restaurant to be well managed?
• Was your meal fairly priced?
• Did you use a gift card to pay for your meal today?
• Were you satisfied with the ease of the payment process?
• Were there any issues you would like the owner to know about?
• Would you like to see another restaurant owned by the same owner in your area?
• Have you eaten at one of our restaurants before? If so, how did this experience compare?
• Are you familiar with any of our other restaurants or locations?
• Did your experience match the expectations set by our other restaurants?
• How would you rate your experience with restaurants owned by (insert owner/group name) on a scale of 1-5?

Conducting a restaurant survey, step by step

Now that you have an idea of the kinds of questions to include in your restaurant survey, it’s time to start building yours. Here’s how:

1. Plan out your objectives. Think about the kind of information you’re looking for and the customer insights you’ve been missing. Without clearly established goals, you might collect information that isn’t helpful or actionable. Meet with upper management and other team members to carve out goals for your survey that will help you make improvements. 
2. Formulate your questions. Once you have a clear vision of your survey’s intent, you can start planning out your questions. Feel free to use the questions suggested above, or you can ask questions that are more specific to your restaurant. Incorporate different question formats, including rating scales, open-ended, and multiple choice. This will add variety to your survey and allow you to collect a broader range of feedback.
3. Build your survey. Now it’s time to design your survey! While we recommend going with an easy-to-use online survey that you can send out via link or embed in your website, you can also print out a physical survey. Jotform’s online form builder lets you customize your restaurant feedback form and share it with your customers in seconds.
4. Analyze results. Finally, organize and analyze your results to determine which aspects of your restaurant need improvement and what your action items are. Consolidating your survey data is easy with Jotform Tables, and you can even convert your data into a professional presentation with Jotform Report Builder.

Using survey results to improve your restaurant

Though you might not be able to make every customer happy, you can use restaurant survey questions to gather valuable information to improve your overall customer experience. Plus, surveys give customers a platform to air their grievances or share their feedback before posting on public review sites.

The goal of gathering survey feedback is to identify solutions that enable you to improve how you manage your restaurant. Watch for trends to determine the most pressing issues or highlight your best features. As you act on this information, you can use it to help your business grow by increasing the likelihood of repeat business.

An easy way to create restaurant surveys

Building a survey doesn’t have to be difficult. Online form builder Jotform helps you streamline this process with more than 1,000 survey templates you can customize to fit your needs. Just pick a template, add your restaurant survey questions, share it with customers, and view the reports to gain valuable insights.

If you don’t want to use a premade survey template, you also have the option to design a personalized survey form from scratch.

Asking the right questions can help you improve your restaurant’s offerings and pinpoint your top selling points. With a restaurant survey creator like Jotform, you can easily gather these valuable insights and take your business to the next level.

Restaurant Survey FAQs

How can I encourage customers to fill out my restaurant survey?

Offering customers incentives for filling out surveys is an easy way to increase your restaurant survey’s response rate. You may offer customers a discount on their next meal, a free item with their next purchase, or the chance to enter a giveaway for a gift card with proof of survey submission. If you are struggling to receive customer responses to your survey, adding these incentives can boost your results.

What’s the best way to distribute restaurant surveys?

How you distribute your restaurant surveys will depend on your customers. However, a few common methods include via email, QR codes, or text. If customers sign up for a loyalty program or use their email and phone number to make a reservation, you can use this data to connect with them after their meal. QR codes place the power in your customers’ hands by allowing them the freedom to interact with your survey or not.

How should I respond to negative feedback from my customers?

Negative feedback can be detrimental to your business, which is why you need to respond quickly and professionally. Typically, responses to negative feedback involve issuing an apology and finding a way to make things right with your customer. This could include offering a refund or a free meal in the future.

Try to collect as many details about the customer’s negative experience as you can to understand what, why, and how it happened, as well as how you can avoid similar situations in the future. Make sure your customer feels heard and reassure them you will take action to prevent this issue going forward.

Should I share my restaurant survey results with my staff?

Yes, you should share your restaurant survey results with staff members. This is particularly true if you receive feedback about specific team members, either positive or negative. However, it’s best to address negative concerns with specific team members privately.

By being in the loop on your restaurant survey results, your team can align with your goals, concerns, and wins — which helps accelerate future improvements and performance. Positive feedback can also be used as an incentive for staff members and contribute to future promotions or pay raises.

How often should I review my restaurant survey results?

Depending on the volume of your survey responses, you may review your survey results weekly or monthly. If you have an extremely high response rate, you may even consider checking them daily. Regardless, it’s important to check results on a regular basis so you can be proactive in resolving customer concerns and analyzing feedback.