Purpose - This study can provide practical guidance to service contact employees who directly affect job performance, focusing on the awareness of service providers in the catering industry for linguistic communication that was applied separately in previous studies. As a result, the direction of the food service industry that can lead to higher customer satisfaction can be suggested. Therefore, this study intends to empirically examine the effect of verbal communication of service providers in the food service industry on self-awareness and the effect of self-awareness on job performance. Design, data, and methodology - Employees from the food service industry in Daegu and Gyeongbuk were surveyed from their 20s or older from December 1 to December 30, 2019 (about 4 weeks). A total of 200 people were surveyed, and 189 sincere respondents among the collected responses were used for analysis. Result -First, verbal communication showed that empathy had an effect on the negative emotions of self-perception, but response and trust did not. Second, verbal communication was found to have a positive (+) effect on empathy, response, and trust in positive emotions of self-perception. Third, in self-perception, negative emotions did not affect job performance, and positive emotions were found to have a significant positive (+) effect on job performance.