1. Introduction
In recent years, people in Taiwan have increasingly
valued their leisure time. In the past, people could only
afford adequate clothing and food. As a result of the increase
in the gross national income, the standard of living
has been elevated. People have become more and more
concerned about material comforts and emotional wellbeing.
A popular leisure activity is teatime. At teatime,
one can feel refreshed after a stressful workday.
As teatime has thrived in Taiwan in recent years, the
consumer market for coffee has grown accordingly. Many
types of cafés (Japanese, American and Italian) have been
opened (Chuang, 2002). Over the last five years, this trend
has triggered the interest of researchers (Li, 1985; Wang,
2000; Lin, 2000; Chuang, 2002; Chien, 2003) in investigating
coffee chain market and consuming behavior.
Cheng (2002) examined the management situation of service
quality in coffee chain shops in Taipei, along with
factors affecting the service quality. Lin (2005) focused
her research in a case study on spatial design of cafés and