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Vox presents an article about restaurant noise levels and why they've risen over the years.
When the Line Hotel opened in Washington, DC, last December, the cocktail bars, gourmet coffee shops, and restaurants that fill its cavernous lobby drew a lot of buzz. Housed in a century-old church, the space was also reputedly beautiful.
My first visit in February confirmed that the Line was indeed as sleek as my friends and restaurant critics had suggested. There was just one problem: I wanted to leave almost as soon as I walked in. My ears were invaded by a deafening din.
[...] In reckoning with this underappreciated health threat, I’ve been wondering how we got here and why any well-meaning restaurateur would inflict this pain on his or her patrons and staff. I learned that there are a number of reasons — and they mostly have to do with restaurant design trends. In exposing them, I hope restaurateurs will take note: You may be deafening your staff and patrons.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Friday April 20 2018, @02:54PM (5 children)
In the UK, we have pubs.
Pubs can be:
- Quiet family place, roaring fire, oak beams, garden out the back, bartender's dog asleep under the bar etc. etc.
- Loud "bar" full of raucous sports-fans watching Sky Sports and getting drunk.
or anywhere in between.
Literally, if you advertise your pub as having sports on, I walk past. Even if it's not on all the time, only certain days, only in a certain section, etc. Just one sign will do. Same for "live music".
Similarly, walking into a place if it's heaving and loud, nah. I'll find somewhere else instead. Especially if it's "to be social"... I need to be able to hear my friends!
Restaurants - it's not nearly so bad a problem in the UK. Even "pubs" can be restaurants (gastro-pubs). But you never really see a restaurant with anything other than light music. Certainly not loud blaring TVs or sports channels.
If you can't hear when I say "I'm going" and leave... then I will be leaving and you won't notice, so... kind of self-fulfilling. I think the bartenders should be thinking the same. If they can't notice customers coming in because of the racket and business, I'm not going to be noticed when I walk in there, so I'm likely not going to get good service. I'm sure you can make money hand-over-fist in such places, but if I don't get service you won't be seeing *my* money.
I've walked into a restaurant before now, said "Oh, it's packed, I don't think we'll get a table", and a member of staff has heard me, assured me there are plenty of spaces, and showed me to a an empty seating area, etc.
If you can't hear your customers doing that, they likely are just going to turn around and walk out.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20 2018, @04:16PM (4 children)
Hey Grandpa, if the music's too loud, you're too old.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday April 20 2018, @06:05PM (3 children)
You know, in the '60's lots of people liked to go to places with really loud music. It took a few years, but many of them have ended up deaf. I avoided those places, and I've still got decent hearing. This is just one data point, so don't take it too seriously, but others have reported the same thing, so you might consider it.
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(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday April 20 2018, @07:06PM
Me too, so two data points. In fact there are millions of data points - any hearing specialist will tell you that loud environments damage your hearing.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday April 20 2018, @07:09PM
Counter example:
I used to help organize the Saturday night concert every week while I was at university (mid '70s). So, I heard a lot of loud music over a 3 year period decades ago. My hearing is not 100%, but it is still good. I often have trouble hearing my wife, but I think the problem is not my hearing, but my attention.
My father, on the other hand: worked in his factory his entire career and he had quite severe hearing loss towards the end of his life.
So, perhaps it's not the loud music in the '60s that caused the problems as much as the loud work environments.
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(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday April 21 2018, @12:32PM
To be honest, all the people I see that are into really loud music have that problem. They don't even need to be particularly old.
And it's self-exacerbating. If you start getting hearing trouble because of the loud music, you turn the music up, which means you damage your hearing more, which means...
Sure, it's fun to blast out some loud music in the car occasionally, or be at a noisy party. But when that takes preference to every scenario, such as chatting with friends in a pub, etc. then you are exposing yourself to enough of it to damage your hearing. Oh, and seriously hurting your ability to have a conversation that isn't about music and how cool you are.