title: Associations between a voluntary restaurant menu designation initiative and patron purchasing behavior.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Restaurant initiatives provide an efficient opportunity to impact large numbers of patrons. The purpose of this study is to measure patron purchasing behaviors during the ¡Por Vida! menu designation initiative.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study used a cross-sectional design and survey data to assess 23 restaurants throughout Bexar County and 152 restaurant patrons. The Patron Awareness Questionnaire assessed if patrons noticed the logo; believed nutrition, cost, and taste were important in making purchasing decisions; and purchased a ¡Por Vida! item. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, and logistic regression were used to analyze the data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most (93.4%) patrons considered taste very important when deciding what to eat. Cost was very important to 63.8% and nutrition was very important to 55.9% of the sample. The strongest predictors of purchasing a ¡Por Vida! item were the patrons' ages being between 18 and 35 years (odds ratio = 1.474; confidence interval = 0.017, 0.812; p < .05) and if patrons saw the logo (odds ratio = 4.327; confidence interval = 1.696-11.036; p < .01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Menu logo designation initiatives can potentially influence patron purchasing behaviors among a segment of the population when the logo is visible.
authors.affiliation: 1University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Erica T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Sosa
authors.forename: Lesli
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Biediger-Friedman
authors.forename: Martha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Banda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002755:Choice Behavior; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005515:Food Labeling; D005518:Food Preferences; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012147:Restaurants; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013781:Texas; D055815:Young Adult