Might a restaurant avoid changing a popular dish even if a better version exists?
People compare improvements to memories, not to reality.
Yes. Restaurants sometimes keep familiar dishes unchanged because customers value emotional consistency as much as objective improvement.
Improvement sounds obviously positive until memories become involved.
The hidden mechanism is expectation anchoring. Customers often compare a new version of a dish not to competitors, but to the version they already love.
Imagine changing a famous soup recipe to make it objectively better. Some customers may still feel disappointed because their memories expected something else.
A second-order effect develops because dishes become symbols. Changing the recipe can feel like changing the restaurant itself.
People often think customers want the best version of something. Many simply want the version they learned to love.
