This research paper aims to analyse how consumer emotions have evolved during the pandemic period in comparison with the pre-pandemic period in relation to restaurant demand in the Romanian fine-dining industry and uses valuable information based on social-media sentiment analysis and content analysis. Focusing on theories of consumer behaviour, the study aims to emphasize how, under the influence of an epidemic crisis caused by an infectious disease, individual behaviour adapts to the "new normal", embracing a series of changes in the preferences, attitudes, and cognitive choice-making processes. The article takes into account a comparative analysis of the consumer emotions between the pre-COVID-19 pandemic period (2010-2019) and the pandemic period (2020-present), based on the online reviews provided by customers for five fine-dining restaurants from Bucharest, the capital city of Romania: The Artist, Relais & Chateaux Le Bistrot Francais, Casa di David, Kaiamo, and L'Atelier. The research was based on two mining analyses-content analysis and sentiment analysis-and explored the emotional intent of words, with the data being collected from TripAdvisor through web-scrapping. The empirical results defined the fine-dining experience during the pandemic as being associated with the quality of the dishes and also with the quality of the service. The overall consumer sentiment in the direction of the restaurants analyzed is positive. The sentiment research found that throughout the epidemic, the consumers' attitudes about restaurants deteriorated. In this sense, consumers seem to be less satisfied with the restaurants' services than before the pandemic. This is another thing that the restaurants had difficulties in when adapting their operations for the pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19; consumer behavior; consumer trends; fine dining; global food trends; health belief model; pandemic; restaurants; sentiment analysis.