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How Restaurants Got So Loud

Alex

By Alex
in Restaurant Life

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Alex

Alex

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

There's a very good article in The Guardian today about restaurant noise, including information about a sound-reporting app.

 

Quote

To make restaurateurs appreciate the value of bringing sound levels down, the perception that noise equals “everybody’s having fun” needs challenging. “Noise doesn’t create the atmosphere,” Meloni insists. “The atmosphere is created by the waiters and the managers.”

 

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

pastrygirl

pastrygirl

Posted
Posted
On 4/17/2019 at 8:41 AM, dcarch said:

I still think expensive rent, health department inspections in city environment require  highly packed seating and hard reflective surfaces for cleaning.

 

The health dept doesn't care if there are upholstered booths and carpet in the dining room as long as the kitchen is easily cleanable.

gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted

I blame brainless consultants who apply their brainless formulae to every restaurant who  is clueless enough to hire them. Brainless consultants are a blot on business in the US. 

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  • 1 month later...
Alex

Alex

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

Excellent article in this past Monday's Washington Post

 

Quote

Under Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act, restaurants — as places of public accommodation — must accommodate disabilities. But what if the disability is a hearing impairment, and the request is for a lower volume? On this issue, the law has largely remained silent.

 

Hard-of-hearing diners report a vast range of responses when they seek softer music or quieter seating. Sometimes the music is turned down or off, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it is even turned up. Maybe the volume is declared unchangeable, set by corporate overseers. Or there’s no available seating far from the clattering kitchen, the droning ventilation, the hearty partyers.

 

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

  • 3 weeks later...
fondue

fondue

Posted
Posted
On 11/29/2018 at 4:38 AM, liuzhou said:

"Morning tea' or 'yum cha' is particularly noisy. Retired people get together to drink tea, eat dim sum and have a good shout at each other.

 

 

This is true all over Florida too! Some of our retirees prefer not to wear hearing aids, and breakfast especially seems like a lively shouting match!

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Toliver

Toliver

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, fondue said:

 

This is true all over Florida too! Some of our retirees prefer not to wear hearing aids, and breakfast especially seems like a lively shouting match!

I would take my mom out for breakfast at a local popular diner and sometimes we were seated near the bar (where single senior men would sit to eat so they didn't have to take up a table), I would have to remind the men during their arguments about the news of the day that there were ladies present and they needed to watch their language and volume. I think they were used to their single lives and would get so wrapped up in their conversations/arguments that civility seemed to fly out the window. ;)

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chromedome

chromedome

Posted
Posted

https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/dining/mark-kurlyandchik/2019/07/07/loud-restaurants-noise-affects-taste/1638352001/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

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“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

kayb

kayb

Posted
Posted

In the one dinner I got to go to during my abbreviated visit, @Alex, Mrs. Alex, @cyalexa and I went to Vicia, where the food was most excellent (and I had the best sorbet I've ever had in my life). But my enjoyment of the meal was hampered by the fact the restaurant was so loud. There are no soft surfaces to soak up sound, thus it was difficult to hold a conversation at the table, particularly for those of us who are somewhat hearing challenged.

 

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Don't ask. Eat it.

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Alex

Alex

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
12 minutes ago, kayb said:

In the one dinner I got to go to during my abbreviated visit, @Alex, Mrs. Alex, @cyalexa and I went to Vicia, where the food was most excellent (and I had the best sorbet I've ever had in my life). But my enjoyment of the meal was hampered by the fact the restaurant was so loud. There are no soft surfaces to soak up sound, thus it was difficult to hold a conversation at the table, particularly for those of us who are somewhat hearing challenged.

 

 

You think that was loud? You should have been at Billie | Jean the previous night with Ms. Alex and me. Vicia was a library compared to that. Neither of us is hearing challenged (although this card graces our fridge), but a normal conversation was next to impossible. But like Vicia, the food and service were excellent. 

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

  • 3 months later...
Anna N

Anna N

Posted
Posted (edited)

Another take on noise levels in restaurants

 

“Trying to talk over clamouring plates and the hum of background music while also dealing with first-date jitters can be daunting.

 

"You're kind of setting yourself up for failure," said Gregory Scott, who has hearing loss.

The anxiety he felt in such situations spurred the New Yorker into action around four years ago.”

Click

 

 

Edited by Anna N
Typo (log)
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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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Margaret Pilgrim

Margaret Pilgrim

Posted
Posted

Every so often i see an ad or a commercial that doesn't resonate and I've come to respond, "If I don't like it, it isn't aimed at me."   The same is true with restaurants today.    Loud noise is intentional as it creates a party atmosphere that the target diner enjoys/requires.   God forbid you have to make conversation with your date or partner!      I read over and over that to a restaurateur, a quiet dining room is an anathema.   

 

It's a shame since I really like young, hip food, just not young, hip contrived party atmosphere.

 

 

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eGullet member #80.

BeeZee

BeeZee

Posted
Posted

Last weekend DH and I ate at a very small (26 seats) seafood restaurant which was excellent (Two Fish in Haddonfield, NJ) but with the wood floor, wood tables, and wood chairs, the sound quality was awful. More so because we were only a couple of feet away from a party of 6 in the center of the small room. And a couple of people at that table were getting loud, slapping a hand on the table to make a point, clank as the tableware rattled from the blow. The restaurant certainly isn’t striving for a “party” atmosphere, it would have been less uncomfortable if some sound absorbing materials had been incorporated in to the design. I don’t expect to eat in a room that feels like a hushed, sacred space...but I would like to not feel like I have to raise my voice to have a conversation. I really enjoyed my meal, but I would hesitate to return due to the lack of comfort for my ears (and butt...man, those wood seats are brutal). 

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gfweb

gfweb

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, BeeZee said:

Last weekend DH and I ate at a very small (26 seats) seafood restaurant which was excellent (Two Fish in Haddonfield, NJ) but with the wood floor, wood tables, and wood chairs, the sound quality was awful. More so because we were only a couple of feet away from a party of 6 in the center of the small room. And a couple of people at that table were getting loud, slapping a hand on the table to make a point, clank as the tableware rattled from the blow. The restaurant certainly isn’t striving for a “party” atmosphere, it would have been less uncomfortable if some sound absorbing materials had been incorporated in to the design. I don’t expect to eat in a room that feels like a hushed, sacred space...but I would like to not feel like I have to raise my voice to have a conversation. I really enjoyed my meal, but I would hesitate to return due to the lack of comfort for my ears (and butt...man, those wood seats are brutal). 

Exactly.  Make it a pleasant environment and I’ll come back.

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dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted

I have not tried this, but I think this will work.

 

In a very noisy restaurant, you and your companion both use your cell phones with earphones to carrying on your conversation.

 

The cell phones have noise cancelling microphones and you can whisper into the microphones,  and in-ear earphones cut out all background noise.

 

 dcarch

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chromedome

chromedome

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, weinoo said:

I prefer the Cone of Silence, as popularized by Maxwell Smart...

 

 

 

Sadly, tight-fisted restaurateurs are seldom willing to invest in those any more... :P

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“Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.” - William Cowper, The Task, Book Three

 

"Not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition...The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.” - psychologist David Dunning

 

JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, chromedome said:

 

Sadly, tight-fisted restaurateurs are seldom willing to invest in those any more... :P

 

Then you use the coughing code.

 

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liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted

This interesting NPR article "From Lawn Mowers To Rock Concerts, Our 'Deafening World Is Hurting Our Ears" is about noise in general, but does include a section on restaurants. Also available as a more detailed podcast from the same link.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

kayb

kayb

Posted
Posted
On 11/9/2019 at 6:57 PM, BeeZee said:

 I really enjoyed my meal, but I would hesitate to return due to the lack of comfort for my ears (and butt...man, those wood seats are brutal). 

 

Having lost a bunch of weight about three years ago, and as a result, having much less built-in butt padding than I once did, I avoid hard wooden chairs like the plague. I'm a confirmed booth-sitter.

 

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Don't ask. Eat it.

www.kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com

  • 1 month later...
medcon

medcon

Posted
Posted
On 11/29/2018 at 1:36 AM, Lisa Shock said:

This has been a hot topic for over a year now, with several publications doing articles on the situation. The trend was started and promoted by Mario Batali.

True...

  • 1 year later...
liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, sheetal kamble said:

Bars and restaurants continued to merge through the 1990s and 2000s, and that’s a big reason restaurants, on the whole, got noticeably louder.

 

That is only true in some places, yet restaurants seem to have become louder almost everywhere.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

  • 4 months later...
Margaret Pilgrim

Margaret Pilgrim

Posted
Posted

We've simply resigned ourselves to the reality that most of the new/hip, exciting restaurants that interest us will be loud.  

I recently read quip that resonated:  It's not too loud; you're too old.

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eGullet member #80.

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