Eateries are business franchises which
predominantly deal in the sale of prepared
food. The paper examines the spatial pattern
of eateries in Ibadan North Local Government
Area of Oyo-State. Also, the nature of
patronage was examined and explained within
the context of this research work. The Nearest
Neighbour Analysis (NNA) was used to
analyze the distribution of eateries within the
study area and it was observed that the
distribution of eateries within the local
government area assumed a clustered pattern
as against what was hypothetically stated. An
Rn value of 0.38815 (P <0.05) indicates a
clustered pattern of distribution. Frequency
tables and mean rank values were used to
reveal the most important factor that
determines the location of eateries in space
and it was discovered that proximity to
customers was the most important factor of
location. The mean rank value for this factor
was 6.79 being the closest to the maximum of
8. The result of the correlation analysis which
was used to test for the relationship between
the frequency of patronage of eateries and the distance of patrons form the eateries
envisaged that there is a significant
relationship between the frequency of
patronage and the distance of patrons form
the eateries. The R value of -0.251 (P < 0.05)
shows that an inverse relationship exists
between the two variables of interest. In
addition to this, the chi-square value of 39.187
(P < 0.05) indicates that there is significant
relationship between the frequency of
patronage and the occupation of patrons. Also,
the X2 value of 22.030 (P < 0.05) indicates
that there is a significant association between
marital status and the frequency of patronage.