Restaurant survey questions, with a free template
A useful restaurant survey asks one clear question at a time across arrival, ordering, food, service, wait time, and value. These ten core questions are ready to copy and weighted toward what diners say matters: cleanliness first in every segment, then staff for full-service and wait time for cafés and quick service (NRA, 2025).
Weight the questions to what diners weigh
Cleanliness is the number one experience factor for both full-service and limited-service customers, chosen by 73 percent in each segment (NRA, 2025). After that the paths split: full-service diners weigh kind, welcoming staff and responsiveness; café and quick-service customers weigh wait time. Price sensitivity flips too: 64 percent of full-service diners say experience matters more than price, but only 47 percent of café customers agree. A café survey that asks six price questions is asking the wrong thing.
The question set
Use a 1 to 5 scale, very dissatisfied to very satisfied, for questions 1 through 9. Use a 0 to 10 scale for question 10 so recommendation stays separate from satisfaction.
- Arrival: how easy was it to get seated or begin your order?
- Cleanliness: how clean did the restaurant feel overall?
- Ordering: how clear was the menu?
- Ordering: how accurately was your order prepared?
- Food: how satisfied were you with the temperature of your food?
- Food: how satisfied were you with the quality and taste?
- Service: how attentive and courteous was the staff?
- Wait: how reasonable was the wait for ordering, food, and the bill?
- Value: how would you rate the value for the price you paid?
- Overall: how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?
Finish with one optional open question
Add “What is one thing we could have done better?” after the scored questions. Keep it optional. It gives guests room to name a problem the fixed questions missed without making the scored survey harder to compare month to month.
Café variants worth adding
Cafés have their own friction points, and the two that recur in our pilots are connectivity and policy surprises: Wi-Fi failing while guests try to work, or a card-only and takeaway-surcharge policy announced only at the register (DiningBrief pilots). Add two questions for café concepts: how reliable was the Wi-Fi, and were prices and policies clear before you ordered.
What a survey misses that reviews do not
A survey asks the questions you chose. Your public reviews, and your competitors reviews, capture what diners actually wrote, unprompted, including the things no survey would think to ask. And diners read them before they visit: 43 percent will not visit a place rated below 3 to 3.5 stars (Toast, 2024). Use surveys for the questions you choose; use reviews for everything else.
Plain text, ready to paste into Google Forms, Typeform, or receipt QR codes.
Related guides
See how this works in practice: view a sample finding.
Good to know
How many questions should a restaurant survey have?
Start with ten scored questions and one optional open question. If response rates are weak, shorten the survey to the stages you are actively improving.
What questions should a café survey ask that a restaurant survey should not?
Wi-Fi reliability and policy clarity. Café customers work from the room and are more price-sensitive, so surprise surcharges and failing connectivity hit them hardest.