Customer satisfaction in tourism restaurants is regarded as one of the key and fundamental success factors in the hospitality industry, and the behaviour of service employees plays a decisive role in its formation. The present study was conducted to explain the simultaneous and interactive effect of personality and functional dimensions of employee behaviour on customer satisfaction in the tourism restaurants of Shiraz. This research employed an exploratory mixed-methods approach. In the qualitative phase, through a systematic literature review (2010 to 2024) and qualitative content analysis, the behavioural components of employees were extracted and a conceptual model was developed. In the quantitative phase, the model was tested using a questionnaire and structural equation modelling on 150 customers of tourism restaurants in Shiraz. The findings indicated that both personality and functional dimensions of employee behaviour have a positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction, and the final model was able to explain 60.5% of the variance in customer satisfaction. It was also found that the simultaneous effect of these two dimensions is far greater than the separate effect of each one. Based on the results, it is recommended to managers of tourism restaurants in Shiraz to simultaneously pay attention to personality and functional skills in staff recruitment, training, and evaluation programs in order to provide a more favourable experience for tourists. However, due to sampling limitations, the generalizability of the results to other cities requires further supplementary research.