Investigating beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding green restaurant patronage: An application of the extended theory of planned behavior with moderating effects of gender and age

•This study aims to identify consumers’ belief structures underlying the cognitive process of green restaurant patronage.•Perceived behavioral control emerged as the most important determinant of consumer green restaurant patronage.•Specific behavioral, normative and control beliefs that contribute to consumers’ green restaurant patronage were identified.•The findings also support the inclusion of past behavior and confirm the moderating effects of gender and age.•This study provides useful implications for effective marketing strategies for green restaurants. This study aims to identify customer belief structures underlying the cognitive process of green restaurant patronage by applying the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB). The extended TPB model includes two additional predictors (past behavior and dining frequency) and two moderators (gender and age) to predict customers’ intention to visit green restaurants. This study followed recommended two-phase survey procedures. Salient beliefs of the target population were elicited in the first phase, and the relationships between those beliefs and other TPB constructs were analyzed in the second phase. Perceived behavioral control emerged as the most significant determinant followed by attitude and subjective norm in the Korean green restaurant context. The findings support the inclusion of past behavior as an additional predictor and confirm the moderating effects of gender and age. This study provides useful implications for effective marketing strategies for green restaurants.