Abstract

The hospitality industry, food service in particular, requires the consistent practice and application of food safety guidelines in addition to effective collaboration between various staff within the kitchen and dining areas. Along with health and safety standards, professionals in the field know that the operation and organization of the kitchen are at the core of a successful dinner experience that promotes tourism in the area. Collaborative evaluation offers the benefits of high stakeholder involvement and engagement between collaboration members. In this article, we present the Model for Collaborative Evaluations (MCE) as a tool for identifying solutions to key issues within dinner service experiences. The MCE introduces a novel approach to evaluating the integrated systems within hospitality and food service. In response to the growing tourism industry, we present insights based on utilizing this model as a valuable tool in evaluating dinner services. First, we discuss the components of the MCE. We target six key factors for improving the dining experience and explore ways in which the MCE can address quality dining factors (e.g., coordination between the Front of the House and the Back of the House, improving ticket firing systems, and enhancing the consumer experience).