Here are some of the best questions for a hotel guest survey about restaurant service, plus tips to help you design a truly insightful survey. With Specific, you can build these surveys in seconds—no technical knowledge or lengthy form-building required.
The best open-ended questions for hotel guest surveys about restaurant service
Open-ended questions are invaluable when you want honest, nuanced feedback from hotel guests. They let guests share memorable details in their own words, which can illuminate unexpected opportunities for improving your restaurant’s offering. We recommend these especially for uncovering the ‘why’ behind ratings or choices.
Here are the top 10 open-ended questions for a hotel guest survey about restaurant service:
What aspects of our restaurant did you enjoy most during your stay?
Was there anything about your dining experience that disappointed you?
How did the quality of the food compare to your expectations?
Can you describe the atmosphere or setting of the restaurant as you experienced it?
Were there any menu items you wish we had offered?
How would you rate the service you received from our restaurant staff? Please explain your answer.
Did you feel the value matched the price of your meal? Why or why not?
Can you share an example of a memorable interaction you had in our restaurant?
What suggestions do you have to improve our restaurant service?
Would you recommend our restaurant to friends or family? Why or why not?
These questions help reveal the specifics behind satisfaction scores. When you combine these with data on service, food quality, and value, you address the very factors proven to shape overall guest satisfaction. Studies show that food quality is a primary determinant of customer satisfaction, and other variables like service quality and setting matter deeply as well. [2][3]
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for hotel guest surveys about restaurant service
Single-select multiple-choice questions make it easy to quantify perceptions—great for benchmarking or quick comparisons. They're perfect when you want clear, structured answers or to gently engage guests who may not feel like writing lengthy feedback. Plus, they’re a great way to spark a conversation that a follow-up open or probing question can expand on.
Question: How would you rate the quality of the food in our restaurant?
Excellent
Good
Average
Poor
Question: What was the main reason you chose to dine at our restaurant?
Menu variety
Ambiance
Convenience (in-hotel)
Recommendation
Other
Question: How likely are you to dine here again on your next stay?
Very likely
Somewhat likely
Unlikely
Not sure
When to follow up with "why?" Open up the conversation whenever you see an answer that deserves context. For example, if a guest selects "Unlikely" for repeat dining, ask: “Can you share the main reason why you wouldn’t dine with us again?” That “why” can unearth actionable feedback behind the score.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include "Other" to give guests a space for opinions you didn’t predict. The real magic happens when you prompt a follow-up: “What was your other reason?” These nuggets often uncover fresh opportunities or highlight blind spots you didn’t know existed.
Should you include an NPS question?
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful metric for hotel restaurant service surveys. It asks guests, on a scale from 0 to 10, how likely they are to recommend your restaurant to others. The resulting score reveals how many of your guests are true promoters, passives, or detractors—a valuable indicator of overall satisfaction and loyalty. Since restaurant experience is a key factor in whether a guest recommends or returns to a hotel, NPS provides actionable insights that directly connect to guest loyalty and business growth. In fact, hotels with highly-rated restaurants often see a direct boost in occupancy and can charge premium rates. [1]
Want to add a ready-to-use NPS question? Try this NPS survey builder for hotel guest restaurant service.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions can transform a simple survey into a high-quality research conversation. When you combine initial questions with smart, automated follow-ups, you get rich context that would be otherwise impossible to gather at scale. Specific’s AI-based automated follow-up feature does this in real time, so every respondent feels engaged—and you get complete, nuanced feedback.
Hotel guest: “The food was okay.”
AI follow-up: “Could you tell me more about what you thought could be improved about the food? Was it taste, selection, or something else?”
How many follow-ups to ask? The sweet spot is generally 2-3 follow-ups per open-ended response, just enough to clarify or go deeper without overwhelming the guest. And with Specific, you can set the system to skip to the next question as soon as you have what you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: The survey moves out of the traditional form and into a natural back-and-forth, leading to more thoughtful and complete responses.
Easy analysis, even with lots of unstructured text: Don’t let the idea of lots of open text scare you. With AI-powered survey response analysis, you can instantly distill key themes—even across hundreds of answers.
Try creating your own conversational survey with dynamic follow-ups and experience the difference in actionable insights and guest engagement.
How to prompt AI to generate great hotel guest restaurant service questions
If you’re using ChatGPT or another AI-powered tool, start simple. Here’s a prompt example to get started:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Hotel Guest survey about restaurant service.
AI always delivers better quality if you include more context about your goals, your guests, and your restaurant setting. Try:
I manage a boutique hotel with a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant, mostly serving business travelers and families. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a guest survey that will help me improve food quality, service, and ambiance.
Want to organize your questions further? Ask AI to help with categorizing:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, once you identify which categories matter most to you (for example: Food Quality, Ambiance, Value), dive deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories Food Quality, Ambiance, and Value.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey turns standard, static forms into interactive, chat-like interviews. Instead of dry lists or rigid page-after-page questions, each guest experiences a dynamic dialogue—where the AI listens, reacts, and asks contextual follow-ups in real time.
Here’s how conversational surveys (especially with AI) stand out compared to traditional approaches:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
- Tedious, especially for long/complex surveys | - Instantly generated from a single prompt |
Why use AI for hotel guest surveys? Because the feedback gathered through conversational surveys is not only richer, it’s also more actionable. You’ll capture the context, emotion, and intent behind every answer—and you’ll analyze it with a single click using AI-powered tools. If you want to see how the process works from idea to live survey, check out this guide to creating a hotel guest restaurant survey.
With Specific, AI survey examples are easy to create, and you get a best-in-class conversational experience for both you (the creator) and your guests. No more juggling question lists and logic trees—just tell the AI what you want, and it will build your survey in seconds.
See this restaurant service survey example now
Ready to capture meaningful feedback? See how conversational AI surveys can instantly surface the guest insights you need to improve your restaurant and hotel experience—fast, smart, and always guest-friendly. Don’t miss the chance to turn your guests’ voices into the data that drives real improvement.