Top 8 Things to Ask Guests When Collecting Feedback at a Restaurant

The eight questions worth asking are: was the staff friendly, how satisfied are you with the menu, where else do you eat, what did you like most, would you recommend us, how was the food, what would you search for to find a restaurant like ours, and how would you rate your visit overall. Together they cover service, product, competition, loyalty and discoverability — the five things a restaurant can actually act on.

Most feedback forms fail long before anyone reads the results. They ask too much, ask it too late, or ask questions so vague that every answer comes back "fine." A short, well-aimed form beats a long one every time: guests finish it, and you get answers specific enough to change something on Monday.

What should a restaurant ask on a feedback form?

Keep it under ten questions and make each one earn its place. The eight below, in order:

1. Was the staff friendly?
2. How satisfied are you with the variety of our menu?
3. Where do you eat when you are not dining with us?
4. What is the one thing you liked most about us?
5. Would you recommend us to a friend?
6. How satisfied were you with the taste of the food?
7. What would you search for online to find a restaurant like ours?
8. How would you rate your overall dining experience?

1. Was the staff friendly?

Service is the single biggest driver of whether a guest returns. This is your baseline question — ask it the same way every time so you can watch the number move by shift, by section, and by server.

2. How satisfied are you with the variety of our menu?

It sounds basic, and it is the question that most often surfaces a specific dish or cuisine a guest wanted and could not find. Those answers feed menu planning and promotions directly.

3. Where do you eat when you are not dining with us?

The most under-used question on this list. Owners are usually wrong about who their competition is: guests compare you on proximity, price and style of service, not on cuisine. Ask, and you will learn which restaurants you are genuinely measured against.

4. What is the one thing you liked most about us?

Read alongside question 3, this tells you what to protect. Everyone dines out for a reason — a break, a date, a celebration — and knowing the dominant one shapes your menu, pricing and atmosphere.

5. Would you recommend us to a friend?

Word of mouth still drives more covers than any paid channel. Scored 0–10, this is your Net Promoter Score, and it is the number to trend month over month.

6. How satisfied were you with the taste of the food?

Ask it while the guest is still in the building. An unhappy diner who is asked at the table often tells you instead of telling the internet — and that is a complaint you can still fix.

7. What would you search for online to find a restaurant like ours?

A lead-generation question disguised as a feedback question. Guests describe you in their own words, and those words are what you should be putting on your website and your Google Business Profile.

8. How would you rate your overall dining experience?

A simple 1–10 close. It gives you one comparable number per visit and a clean way to segment every other answer into happy and unhappy guests.

When and how should you collect it?

Timing matters more than the questionnaire. Feedback collected at the table, while the meal is still fresh, has far higher completion rates than an email sent the next morning.

Three approaches that work in a restaurant:

• A tablet brought with the bill. Highest response rate; the server asks once and hands it over.
• A kiosk near the exit. Unattended, self-serve, good for volume.
• A QR code on the table or receipt. Lowest friction to deploy, lower completion.

Whichever you choose, the form has to work when the Wi-Fi does not. Survtapp's restaurant feedback app collects responses offline on the device and syncs them the moment a connection returns, so a patchy signal in the back of house never costs you a response.

Frequently asked questions

How many questions should a restaurant feedback form have?

Eight to ten. Completion rates fall sharply past ten questions, and a finished short form is worth more than an abandoned long one.

What is a good NPS for a restaurant?

Anything above 50 is strong for hospitality. Track your own trend rather than the benchmark — the direction matters more than the number.

Should feedback be anonymous?

Offer it, but make contact details optional. Guests who leave an email are usually the ones who want a reply, and following up on a complaint is the cheapest recovery you can buy.

How often should we review responses?

Weekly for scores and trends, daily for anything scored below 5 so you can still reach the guest.

Start collecting better feedback

Better answers come from better questions asked at the right moment. Build these eight into a form, put it on a tablet at the table, and review the results weekly. See how it works or compare plans — pricing is in CAD and all data is hosted in Canada.