Holy fuck I love La Bete beyond all measure but it can get ca-RAZY dinful sometimes.

Restaurants are usually either too noisy or too quiet. Solution? An stereo system that auto-adjusts the music level in inverse proportion to the (non-music) sound levels in a restaurant or bar. Patent pending.

What I love is how the din in a restaurant will slowly rise in volume over about 15 minutes as everyone has to shout to be heard and you can't hear yourself think. Then suddenly something happens and the volume drops back down to a reasonable level for about 30 minutes, then starts working back up.

I can't tell you how many times in the last 2 months I have asked our waiter or waitress to turn the music down. In 1 particular restaurant the music gets louder as the place fills up. I filled out a complaint card and mailed it in and they sent me a gift card. I wrote and told them the gift card was a nice gesture but wasn't going to make me go back over and over if the music was still so loud that I couldn't have a conversation with friends and family. I got another gift card! Obvs no one actually read the complaint.

My Favorite Breakfast Place In Kent – Wild Wheat - has hard surfaces and an open floor plan and is situated next to the railroad (although, that noise is intermittent and awesome). I love the food there, but hate how noisy it can be.
I wish they’d add some cork and other noise dampeners, though I doubt the place is profitable enough to cover those costs.

I heard it said that restaurant scenes for movies have the cast/extras say "peas and carrots" continuously to simulate restaurant din.

Yes, we finally do. I've become more and more annoyed at the near-impossibility of finding a restaurant in SF with lower volume than a jet engine, except for a couple of very expensive traditional places. I'm happy to eat at noisy, rowdy places sometimes - I just don't want it to be the only option.

Oh man, this brings me back. Just yesterday, I got into a shouting match with someone over the appropriateness of children and babies on airplanes. It made me think of you.

thank you.

last time i walked out of die bier stube, i felt as if i'd just left a rock concert.

install some fucking sound absorbent ceiling tiles, owners.

@ 8, the "appropriateness"? That must have been one absurd argument.

@11 - As always.

@11 - Although not nearly as absurd as the time I got into a shouting match with my sister over how old Julia Roberts is...

I'm starting to think I might have a problem. An absurd problem.

I'm happy to see tablecloths fall out of fashion, but unless the establishment encourages dancing, music volume should never rise to compete with crowd noise.

Regardless, none of these restaurants can hold a candle to the 10-megaton blast that is the taqueria jukebox. Of course, I understand why Can Cun might wish to discourage loitering—being able to actually make out the lyrics when you're dropping $100 on dinner, on the other hand, is unpleasant.

Also, communal seating sucks. Unless the cook plans on dazzling us with his food prep karate, I'm only there to eat with the people I came with.

While they are at it try and find some people who know how to wait on tables..the ones in Seattle are atrocious.

Case in point, if I order the appetizer, I don't want it to be served with the entry...and certainly not after...but BEFORE the meal.

Don't put a plate on my table, wait 1 minute and then as I put the first spoonful in my mouth and ask me "how is it?"

Oh and don't serve me and then immediately plunk down the bill holder as if you have something else to do!!

I, of course, came up in the era of the overstuffed, dimly lit, chandeliered dining rooms (The Golden Lion at the Olympic, or Rosellini's 410 across the street), where the most noise you might hear was the strolling musicians.

I miss those days. Dining was much more campy and fun. The food wasn't as good, but who remembers the food?

Sound treatment is an area where many restaurants fall down in Seattle. It's such a pleasure when you go into one where they seem to have spent some time getting it right (or they just got lucky).

The old Zoe in Belltown was a good example. The music was well distributed in the room with multiple speakers. It was loud enough to be discernible if you were paying attention, but not so loud that you couldn't easily hear your dinner companions. The same goes for the overall volume of the room. It had enough dampening that the sound of people talking didn't echo into a din, but it wasn't so dead that you felt you were in a '70s Steely Dan recording session either.

This is one of those areas where most people who aren't musicians probably aren't fully aware of how it affects their experience in a space. When it's right, they don't really notice, it's just right. When it's wrong, they feel that it is wrong, but they may not be able to articulate in words why it is wrong.

Bad food and waiter service is like an out of tune singer (obvious to most people). Bad sound in a space is like mediocre drummer (not obvious to most people but they know something isn't right and it undermines their experience).

That restaurant in the LATimes article looks like a fucking Chipotle. No wonder it's noisy.

(And I luvs me some Chipotle. I go before 10, or between 2 and 4.)

Part of the problem of noise in restaurants is that whoever designs some of these places think that tin ceilings look cool. They do, but they don't do anything positive to make the place quieter.

All I want is to not have to shout in my companion's face. Is that really too much to ask?

and I’ll add working in a noisy restaurant is very stressful ... and often leads to bad service

I can only imagine the mkt research they do that seems to tell them that customers like restaurants to be as loud as nightclubs.