Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a research framework to explain the relationship between overall restaurant quality and customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – To test this model, the authors deploy 48 mystery shoppers to evaluate 496 Taiwanese restaurants. Further, the authors performed two different regression models and performing the Baron and Kenny (1986) procedure to test the hypotheses. Findings – This study investigates whether restaurants are susceptible to the quality and level of restaurant service, and the restaurant’s physical atmosphere. Further, this study investigates whether these two constructs are likely to improve customers’ perception of restaurant quality, and whether such a strategy may also lead to customers’ satisfaction and facilities word-of-mouth recommendations. Practical implications – The evidence suggests that the construct of “restaurant service” and “physical atmosphere” are strong determinant of improving customers’ perception of overall quality of restaurant. That is, there is a tendency to innovate when restaurant managers prioritize customers’ satisfaction. Further, managers who believe that service and physical atmosphere issues are top priorities will also improve the overall quality in their restaurants. Originality/value – Measuring the relationships between Michelin star evaluation criteria via a large observation sample is rare in the present literature. As far as the authors know, this is the first paper to exam the relationships between Michelin star evaluation criteria.