NPD: Today's consumers crave qualityNPD: Today's consumers crave quality

At the onset of the recession, most restaurant-goers defined value with a single word: price. More recently, however, consumer behavior at restaurants has begun to shift, and that value definition has now come to be identified with another term: quality.

The most important value driver when choosing a restaurant these days is quality of food, according to “Defining Value Today,” a recently released study by Port Washington, N.Y.-based The NPD Group that examines consumers’ perceptions of value when they go out to eat.

“There’s even more focus on the value equation not being driven by price, but really how much it is driven by the food and the quality of the food,” said NPD analyst Bonnie Riggs. “When it comes to value, it’s about the food,...