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How Restaurants Got So Loud


Alex

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18 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

the reality that most of the new/hip, exciting restaurants that interest us will be loud. 

I think it was considered hip when a certain orange-clogged chef was doing this at Babbo. That was 23 years ago.

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I'm reminded of my favorite bar in Memphis, the P&H Cafe, whose proprietress, Wanda, allowed amplified music only two nights a year (August 16, the Dead Elvis Ball, and September 17, Hank Williams Sr.'s birthday). "This is  a conversation bar," she contended.

 

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32 minutes ago, kayb said:

I'm reminded of my favorite bar in Memphis, the P&H Cafe, whose proprietress, Wanda, allowed amplified music only two nights a year (August 16, the Dead Elvis Ball, and September 17, Hank Williams Sr.'s birthday). "This is  a conversation bar," she contended.

 

 

That is civilized right there.  Full stop.

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1 minute ago, lemniscate said:

 

That is civilized right there.  Full stop.

When I come into my first trillion I think I will open a string of “conversation bars”. As you say… Civilized! 

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6 minutes ago, Anna N said:

When I come into my first trillion I think I will open a string of “conversation bars”. As you say… Civilized! 

Save me a seat at the bar.  I can talk a blue streak.

Edited by lemniscate (log)
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The P&H, under Wanda's ownership/management, would have been a fine prototype. It was, up into the late 90s, the only bar in Memphis, at least that I knew of, that still had Kingston Trio on the jukebox. And Wanda was -- well, she was one of a kind. Sadly, she is no longer with us; all those decades of Marlboro Lights got to her.

 

One of the many obits, and one which pretty much captured the nature of the place, is here

 

I went there for the first time in 1978, when I was a senior in college and working at The Commercial Appeal. Wanda found out I was from Camden, TN, just about 30 miles from her hometown of Parsons, and immediately decided we must be kin. ("My Daddy was a travelin' man...") From then until I moved away, I'd get off at 9:30, head up to the P&H, and wait tables in exchange for my tab.  Early evenings, before the serious drinking began, the P&H was a family bar, and my kids grew up eating burgers and fries, learning to shoot pool, busing tables and watching TV in the kitchen with the cook. 

 

I miss it, and her.

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 years later...

One of the main sources of noise in restaurants and cafes is background music. It helps create a lively atmosphere, but sometimes sounds too loud.

Restaurant critic for The Washington Post, Tom Sietsema, notes that he has been paying close attention to this problem: “I've been talking about this for ten years. This is a source of constant irritation." In its reviews, Sietsma includes a noise level rating with decibel counts along with ratings of food quality.

But you also need background noise in the restaurant so that people don’t hear them slurping.

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