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The rise of the loud restaurant — 45 Comments

1. I am a primary loudness offender, and thus in no position to criticise.

   In my defense, I will point out that I nearly always have the most interesting things to say, and if any of my sons are present, this is squared. Come join us for beer night in southern NH if you are here and see if you don’t agree. Tuesdays or Thursdays, near Goffstown.

2. I’ve seen other articles about the loud restaurant phenomenon.

   The most blaring ( sorry about that – NOT! ) reason is that diners spend more money in loud restaurants.

   Personally, I never go back to restaurants that are too loud. Then, again, for the most part, we’d rather eat a home cooked meal anyway.

3. Recently, I wondered why vacuum cleaners are still so loud. One article stated that in addition to the expense and bulkiness involved in making vacuums quieter, there was a widespread customer perception that the louder the vacuum, the better the power and effectiveness. The article reported that quieter leaf blowers with the same power sell poorly compared to louder models.

   The Atlantic article describes the designers favoring hard-surfaced finish materials in restaurant design due to their luxury appearance. But good design also incorporates the experience of a space or product. The aural assault that their designs produce means they are failing at their craft. It’s another area where the cognoscenti are not holding up their end of the bargain when it comes to us deferring to and handsomely compensating them.

4. This caught my attention because one of the effects of my brain injury in 2015 is hyperacusis. I cannot stand noise, especially noise coming from multiple sources. One of the first things we check when entering a restaurant is the noise level. If the background noise is loud enough (often and usually because of music) we leave. I scratch my head often wondering why, why restaurants think background music louder than normal conversation is a good thing. (And now we have some answers.) Who ever complains a restaurant is too quiet?!?

5. If I can’t cherchez la femme, I follow the money.

   For me, the most relevant paragraph:

   “According to Pearlman, the haute-casual dining trend also helps restaurateurs run bigger and more successful businesses. Constructing interiors out of hard surfaces makes them easier (and thus cheaper) to clean. Eschewing ornate decor, linens, table settings, and dishware makes for fewer items to wash or replace. Reducing table service means fewer employees and thus lower overhead. And as many writers have noted, loud restaurants also encourage profitable dining behavior. Noise encourages increased alcohol consumption and produces faster diner turnover. More people drinking more booze produces more revenue. Knowing this, some restaurateurs even make their establishments louder than necessary in an attempt to maximize profits.”

6. And as many writers have noted, loud restaurants also encourage profitable dining behavior. Noise encourages increased alcohol consumption and produces faster diner turnover.

   Cornflour: Bingo-bango! Bars too — or especially.

7. I don’t have any hearing problems that I know of, nor any brain trauma. But I HATE places with loud music blaring everywhere. This includes restaurants and shops. Why do I need to be bothered by loud music in the supermarket?

   I also almost never go to movies because of the extremely loud sounds. When I have to go, I take earplugs and wear them until I leave.

8. I wonder if the unpleasantness of the loud environment, causes faster table turn over?

9. I thought I had posted this here but…

   There is a favorite restaurant in Tucson, called Le Rendezvous, which has two sections. One is inside the building and is very noisy. The other section is under a tent of some sort and is much quieter. The food is great but the next time we go there, we will ask for the tent.

10. One of my lifelong dreams is to open up a coffee-shop-cum-lending library where the menu would be coffee (or tea, or pop, or lemonade), plus two or three daily sandwiches, such as egg salad and ham salad, one or two simple soups, two or three desserts — pie or cake or cookies or pastries. All made on the spot.

    There is a counter where you buy your drink, and a bit of food if you like. Then go pick out a book, and drink, eat, and read. It’s a lending library, so you can borrow books to take out on the same basis as borrowing from the standard public library. (Don’t ask where the stock comes from. You can come help me unpack my moving-boxes….)

    There is no music. Of any kind. There are pleasant accessories — curtains, placemats, comfortable and attractive chairs, perhaps area rugs.

    It’s a place to come for good food and books and peace and quiet.

    (Not all that different from Borders, except that you couldn’t borrow a book.)

    I’ve never quite worked out the finances for this. I mean, if all the patrons are like me, they’ll sit there taking up space for eighteen solid hours, and if we’re having a good day they’ll spend $ 2.75 in food and drinks. Let’s see, if there are 20 tables and each table is used three times (hours, mmm, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., so I guess they only get 4 hours apiece) that’s 60 table-uses per day x $ 2.75 each, conservatively assuming just one person at each table; so, = $ 165/da. Perhaps this is best not seen as a profit-making operation. *g*

    .

    In short, I HATE that you can’t go to a restaurant, a coffeeshop, the grocery store without having somebody’s foul “music” assaulting your ears. The library is the only quiet, restful place in town, but the food is vending machines or non-existent. And nowadays most of the libraries seem to be purposely unattractive. Sheesh, where can you go for a little class!

11. I am a Yelp Elite in Omaha. My daughter complains that I nearly always comment about the noise.

12. The louder you have to speak, the more often you need to take a sip.

13. As an Englishman who’s lived in the United States for many, many years one other factor that you should take into account is that Americans generally shout at each other even when having an ordinary conversation. There’s something about the way that the English speak that makes conversation quieter. English restaurants are not typically as noisy. I often hear people at the next table in restaurants here speaking to their companions as if they’re addressing the far side of the room.

14. Is the restaurant loud or your hearing diminished, or both?

    We go to a variety of places, some louder than others. I’ve not noticed an issue with conversing. Then again, I don’t go to the ‘hot’ places.

15. @ Julie – I’ve seen a few restaurants like that. They closed.

16. I go to a lot of coffee houses and noticed several years ago how loud Starbucks is — the hard wood tables and chairs (so, uncomfortable too) and no rugs or curtains or literally anything that absorbs sound. Look around next time—not a piece of fabric or padding in the entire place.

    It’s not very conducive to reading or working, which is mainly what I’m looking to do in such places. And the coffee is terrible.

    However, Panera is markedly better, with carpeting and padded chairs and better coffee too. It can get noisy when crowded but at least it’s not amplified and reflected by the surroundings, by design.

    When I was younger I didn’t care about such things, but somewhere after 45-50 I stopped compromising—seems to me you should be comfortable and not inundated by noise while drinking burned, over-roasted coffee.

17. Around where I am, a lot of the trendy restaurants are industrial-type decor jobs. That makes for a loud atmosphere. As a matter of fact, on a couple of the local gastronomic blogs, this kind of thing is a regular topic. (If anybody wants to get an idea of the kinds of things that exercise the foodies in eastern New York, see
    https://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping/60163/what-to-do-about-noisy-restaurant-customers/ and https://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping/58596/low-volume-restaurants/ .)

    I shall react to the Atlantic article. The author mentions an 80-decibel background detected in a wine bar, for example. Eighty decibels in a wine bar is an obscenity.

18. Assistant V.I.,

    Apparently they couldn’t quite get the finances to work out either. :>((

19. Interesting article. Loud spaces driving alcohol consumption and turnover is probably all the explanation needed for this soul killing trend.
    I love a quiet dinner with my husband in a ‘classy’ (!) restaurant. Not very many of those places left. We always go to our favorite place at opening and sit in a back booth. By the time we leave the noise level is conversation killing.
    The article only tangentially touched on another reason I think this trend found acceptance. Manners, or rather, the lack thereof. Fine dining used to require a level of table manners that took years of practice to become habitual. People who had to think about their table manners were uncomfortable in those places because the quiet atmosphere highlighted any mistakes or gaucherie. The loud busy style is very forgiving! A lot of people that have the money to dine well aren’t comfortable in a formal setting. They want to have good food and a good time and not be judged. And who can blame them? Of course the solution to that is practice your table manners at every meal. And you can have a good time anywhere!

20. As an Englishman who’s lived in the United States for many, many years one other factor that you should take into account is that Americans generally shout at each other even when having an ordinary conversation.

    No they don’t. You just hang around with banshees and blowhards. Not anyone else’s fault but yours.

21. People, there isn’t much margin in retail trade and restaurants come and go. If you don’t care for the loud ones, go to the quieter ones. The noise level is something you can discern walking in the door. The prices you seen only when it’s awkward to get up and leave. Disagreeable properties of the food you only see when it’s a sunk cost if you’re not willing to risk a theft of services charge. (The two problems you commonly see are chefs who favor fancy presentation over taste and chefs who get their kicks by assaulting their customers with garlic).

22. Not very many of those places left.

    Go to a Panera franchise. It’s quiet enough.

    We always go to our favorite place at opening and sit in a back booth. By the time we leave the noise level is conversation killing.

    Then why is that your ‘favorite place’?

23. Amen.
    I have a couple of preferences for family gatherings that are chosen primarily for subdued noise levels.

    Although my hearing is somewhat problematic in a noisy environment, I find that I simply value quiet. My wife cannot occupy the family room without the TV, and wonders why I often go to a quiet corner of the house when it is on. Somewhere along the way our culture has devalued the joy of blessed quiet.

    While acknowledging our own noisy environment, I disagree with Kevin Morrison’s comparison of it with that of England. I state this as a person who commuted to England frequently in the last years of his working life. There was a time, and there are no doubt still places in England that value the atmosphere he extols; but, their number were dwindling even 25 years ago, and I doubt the trend has reversed. I suppose that it has always been true that in either country a person pays a premium for the elegance of quiet.

24. The noise level is something you can discern walking in the door.

    We go to a local restaurant here that has an outside dining area. It is Tucson so weather is not much of a problem, even in June. The noise level outside is much lower than inside so we always dine outside.

    Although my hearing is somewhat problematic in a noisy environment,

    I have used hearing aides for the past ten years and an annoying feature is that, in restaurants, I hear the conversation behind me better than that in front of me.

    There is also a very popular restaurant that we go to occasionally that is a sort of airplane hanger style building. Probably the “industrial style” someone mentioned above. It is very noisy but the food is very good and cheap. We take young friends there when they visit.

25. Jimmy John’s in Omaha is a real offender. It plays loud music that the help likes.

    I recently complained about the loud halftime music at the Creighton game. It worked!

26. This observation was said of where you lived and in what environment–but it may also apply here–and that is that as your income increases you have access to both more space and more silence; if it is your desire, you can buy/have some isolation, you are not jammed into a small house, with lots of noise in your environment, and noisy neighbors.

    It used to be that if you could afford better restaurants, as a result you usually got tables spread further apart and a much quieter atmosphere. Today, apparently not so much.

    I find that I cannot enjoy a meal in a noisy restaurant, nor am I happy if the tables are spaced very close together to maximize that restaurant’s capacity.

    My wife and both have very distinct memories of a couple of what we had hoped to be memorable meals at upscale restaurants that were spoiled for us by extremely noisy people at nearby tables–littered with empty wine bottles–who were continually talking very loudly, and just yucking it up.

    I hate people who laugh so loud that they disturb everyone else–and just to add to the fun, have a tone to their laugh that is very irritating.

27. This reminds me of a recent dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant. Things were fine until a couple were seated at the next table. She was a real estate agent, dripping costume jewelry, with one of those piercing voices. It ruined dessert and coffee.

28. I love restaurants with TVs. That is living!

29. On my last visit to NYC I looked for a decent place for dinner before an early concert (Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter). The first three places I tried were so loud that I immediately left. The fourth, Turkish Kitchen on Third Avenue, was wonderful albeit a bit expensive.

30. MikeK,

    I also wear hearing aids, and mine are likewise somewhere in the neighborhood of a decade old. They have four programs built into them. One is called “Noisy”, and should be used specifically in situations in which you hear too much noise coming from behind you. The “Noisy” setting shuts off the back-facing speakers, leaving only the front-facing ones on. It’s supposed to address that problem.

    For the record, I also much prefer a quieter place to eat. I’d eat at Mongolian BBQ more often except that it’s so freakin’ loud all the time.

    Waidmann

31. I don’t eat in restaurants much as I have been dieting recently. Mostly, when we have visitors although I do take my wife out once in a while. The noisy place is called, The Culinary Dropout, and is noisy but has good food and is popular with families.

32. When I lived in Thailand, I was amazed that people could tolerate music playing loudly while the television was on, and several different loud conversations were going on at the same time. To me, it was disorienting cacophony. I suppose I got used to it, but I never liked it.

    Now, after having lived in 11 countries on five continents, my observation is that a tolerance for discordant noise is an indication of personal and cultural immaturity.

33. Just the other day I was wondering what ever happened to those old “fancy” restaurants from the early ’70s when I was a kid, that were basically totally dark except for the red candle holders on the tables. If I recall correctly, the one I used to go to with my parents was even carpeted.

    As for modern restaurants, I hate the trend that makes every place a “sports bar” with a dozen 70″ TVs visible from every seat. Cavernous ceilings and loud music seem to be correlated.

34. “The article only tangentially touched on another reason I think this trend found acceptance. Manners, or rather, the lack thereof. Fine dining used to require a level of table manners that took years of practice to become habitual.” — Molly Brown

    I’m not going to argue with this one; however, I will observe that learning to keep your voice down and not annoy other diners can be learned very quickly, and most parents no longer take the opportunity of eating out with their kids to do so.
    We enforced the rules even in McDonald’s.
    * * *
    Oldflyer on November 30, 2018 at 12:50 am at 12:50 am said:
    … I find that I simply value quiet. My wife cannot occupy the family room without the TV, and wonders why I often go to a quiet corner of the house when it is on. Somewhere along the way our culture has devalued the joy of blessed quiet.
    * * *
    AesopSpouse and I have the same disjunct in tolerance of TV; I have to go away once the nightly round of cop shows comes on. I also had to insist my Mother turn off the talking-heads for at least a couple of hours a day while I was there, and my MiL almost fired her support staff (she still lives at home at 93) because they wanted some quiet time, so my SiL simply took the TV set away.

35. Kai Akker on November 30, 2018 at 8:49 am at 8:49 am said:
    I love restaurants with TVs. That is living!

    LOL –
    Bryan, I feel your pain. At least some institutions keep the sound down.
    IIRC, early on in the industry, sometimes bars were the only places that could afford a TV set in working neighborhoods, and it drew in patrons to come, stay, and drink more, especially if The Little Women objected to having sports games (or prize fights) in Her Living Room where the Children could see.

36. Roy Nathanson on November 30, 2018 at 1:23 pm at 1:23 pm said:
    …
    Now, after having lived in 11 countries on five continents, my observation is that a tolerance for discordant noise is an indication of personal and cultural immaturity.
    * * *
    Interesting observation, but might require more rigorous investigation.
    As observed above, not only my kids and spouse, but also our parents, have a greater tolerance for noise than I do; but, of course, I AM the most mature of the lot.
    😉

37. Recommendation for quiet dining:
    We met a friend at the Denver airport yesterday who had a LOOOONG layover (14 hours), and took her to lunch at a nearby Bass Pro Shop (don’t laugh).
    The one in that location has a very large dining room, simulating a ritzy ski resort, with very high ceilings and wooden construction, but when we were there at noon on Friday, almost no other patrons, and the tv at the bar was muted.
    The music was not objectionable, and was turned low.
    The food was excellent (although high on the fat and salt side), and we got to watch the fish in the huge aquarium, which is the main reason I go there.

38. Hate the be an ol’ fuddy duddy, “stick in the mud,” and grumpy old man, but there has been an obvious and general decline in formality and, in my book, it ain’t a good thing.

    For example, the downtown center city Philadelphia of my 1950s-1960s “yout” was most often filled with well-dressed men and women–the men in suits, hats, and shined leather shoes, the women in dresses, and sometimes hats. It appeared that “going out” was an occasion, and people dressed up for it.

    The denizens of today’s downtown center city Philadelphia more often look like escapees from a DP camp, and nary a suit or dress in sight. If I had to guess, I’d say that–except for rare occasions, like weddings or the Prom, and sometimes not even then–(take a look at some of the horrendous wedding and prom pictures on the Web)–most people today dressed as if they were going out to do some dirty chore–say, get under their car while changing the oil, or to do a little huntin’.

    It’s really depressing.

39. Snow: in re “dressing down” — I was talking recently to a young nephew, who has a horse and rides often, about my Grandad, who was a real cowpoke back in the old days. I thought about the fad for $400 jeans that are pre-dirtied and ripped (the hole-in-the-knee was already popular in my college days, but at least the pants were clean), and mentioned that kids now were wearing jeans that my Grandad would have thrown away as unfit for the range.

40. Snow: My mother was born in 1932 and made me dress up to go to the movies in the early ’70s. I’m pretty sure this is why I habitually overdress, especially compared to “Seattle casual” and the tech industry where I work.

41. Dressing up, formality, and manners are attempts at calming and civilizing people, at channelling their behavior into certain acceptable forms—they encouraged public order and a certain type of behavior.

    Public shaming/shunning was also a control technique used to punish and curb behavior outside the norm. All of these techniques could be misused or go awry. But, in general, they were useful and worthwhile things.

    As we’ve seen, very amply demonstrated all around us, dressing down, lax—or no—manners, and informality encourage other—and often poor—types of behavior. They allow for a much wider range of behavior, much of it thoughtless, rude, and hostile in nature.

    As for shunning/shaming people, what worked early in our country’s history—in a very religiously oriented, tight-knit society, composed of relatively isolated small communities, where everyone knew everyone else, and reputation was all—does not at all work in big cites composed of largely anonymous residents.

    Or, in a society that is widely dispersed geographically, whose citizens have access to long distance, high speed transportation, where—unless you are of major interest—you can easily escape notoriety in one area for another area or even another country, far away, where it is likely no one knows you.

    As Judeo-Christian values continue to diminish, and our society gets more and more geographically dispersed, shaming just doesn’t work very well either, especially with people—Politicians and the Info/Entertainment Industry, I’m especially looking at you—who have no actual sense of shame, because they have convinced themselves that absolutely nothing is “abnormal” or “beyond the pale” in terms of behavior, and thus they should not have any shame, no matter what acts they might commit.

42. Snow: “you can easily escape notoriety in one area for another area or even another country, far away, where it is likely no one knows you.”

    There is a folk song from the founding era of Texas that goes —
    Oh, what was your name in the States?
    Was it Thompson, or Johnson, or Bates?
    Did you murder your wife, and then flee for your life?
    Oh, what was your name in the States?

43. Some complementary cartoons about the rise of laxity in dress codes, and some pushback. The first one is funny because it is so true; my mom was not quite of the hat-and-gloves brigade (although her mother remained staunch to the end), but often lamented the jeans-and-tee-shirt attire of the younger congregation, while admitting that “at least they were coming.”

    <a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Flowres.cartoonstock.com%2Ffashion-tuxedo-sheep_ranch-ranch-rancher-sheep-tmcn2451_low.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cartoonstock.com%2Fdirectory%2Ff%2Fformal_friday.asp&docid=mjkC3ev-7eef_M&tbnid=7NYPwxAjSPu6zM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjB-ajJgILfAhUq1oMKHVWFAHwQMwg9KAAwAA..i&w=400&h=422&bih=578&biw=1229&q=cartoon%20formal%20friday&ved=0ahUKEwjB-ajJgILfAhUq1oMKHVWFAHwQMwg9KAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8"This one lampoons the pushback to Casual Friday, which had rapidly become Casual Weekday.

    (I can’t get the hypertext to work, I suspect the URL is too long)

44. Shaming people is the proggies’ and Dims’ stock-in-trade. I didn’t like the practice when I was in grade school and I dislike it still. It’s rude, condescending, and often unfair, even unjust; and mostly it’s done partly out of ignorance (when it’s not a deliberate tactic, as with the named bunch).

    Parents tend to do some amount of shaming of their kids. I think that where the kids aren’t tough enough to ignore it, it really isn’t good for them.

    Shunning people might be hurtful to them, depending on whether they realize they’re being shunned. But it’s much less obnoxious than shaming people.

    On the other hand, societies do have to have mores, else they disintegrate; at which point I believe there is real physical danger from those who think that whatever they do is now okay.

    And it is certainly a mistake to try to make illegal all that which might perturb or even be emotionally hurtful or downright damaging to some people. Because legal punishments are applications of force against people who are wrongdoers (who act against the legal code, that is), they should not be used except where the convicted have themselves appropriated some portion of the property or life of an (innocent) victim.

    So shaming and shunning would seem to be the only recourse that people have to discourage the wronging of innocent others, where the wronging does not rise to the level of purposeful physical harm or damage to others’ persons or property.

    But I still find it all but impossible to bring myself to shame a particular person. Better to sock him in the jaw and be done with it.

    … I am not the only one to have pointed out that life requires judgment, which is often a pain. Life is a balancing act: there are always tradeoffs ™, and Everything Has a Downside™. Sometimes shaming seems the best, least hurtful way to proceed.

    And sometimes, all it does is to get the target’s back up.

45. Julie: Apropos your comment on “shaming”
    http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/29/twitters-new-trans-speech-rules-emanate-religious-extremism/

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