It Used To Be Merely Annoying. Now It's
Nearly Intolerable
As I frequently remind readers – and
family and friends and just about anybody else who will listen –
sono vecchio: I'm old. And
sometimes cranky and ill-tempered as well, especially when something
gets me started on a path toward a rant. And one such thing is the
current trend toward ludicrously loud restaurants.
Now,
in fairness to myself, it's not just a matter of temperament. Within
the last year or so I have developed something the audiologists refer
to as “hyperacusis,” defined as “a highly debilitating
hearing disorder characterized by an increased sensitivity to certain
frequencies and volume ranges of sound (a collapsed tolerance to
usual environmental sound).” Thankfully, mine is a very mild case
and its only manifested itself in one ear. But believe me, it's
enough to make me wince, cringe, and occasionally cry out when, say,
the screams of an infant echo off the hard, bare walls, floors, and
ceilings of a modern eatery and reverberate through my skull. Before
hyperacusis, I found this merely annoying. Now it's nearly
intolerable.
Once upon a time, restaurants – finer
dining establishments in particular – were lush, plush places.
There were rich draperies adorning the windows, carpeting covering
the floors, paneling on the walls, acoustic tiles on low ceilings,
thick padding on the chairs and booth seats, heavy fabric table
linens, and wall hangings of various sorts. If there was music
playing, it was of a soft background nature. All of this cushiness
resulted in a gentle, refined, muted atmosphere. One in which you
could sit down in quiet enjoyment of the food on offer and engage in
conversation with your companion or companions.
Nowadays? You're lucky if you can hear
yourself think.
Used to be, two of Guy Fieri's three
“D”s – diners and dives – were the only spots where this was
a problem. Usually a little farther down the upscale spectrum, such
places were pretty low-fringe. Lots of tile and chrome and plastic
and very few plush accoutrements. You generally expected a noisy
atmosphere and you were seldom disappointed. But today it seems like
even the finest of five-star establishments are out to strip down to
the bare walls and to be as “industrial” as they can be.
Case in point: Meril on Girod Street in
New Orleans. Billed as a “casual Emeril Lagasse spot” serving
“New American” fare, the service at Meril is unreproachable and
the food indescribable. I had an Iberico ham dish I'm still praising
weeks later and my wife still salivates over her perfect rib eye. But
if you've ever been in a packed sports bar in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on
an Iron Bowl game day at the moment the Crimson Tide definitively
rolls over the Auburn Tigers to clinch the win, you'll get an idea of
what the atmosphere at Meril is like on an average Friday dinner
service.
My wife and I sat at a beautiful
hardwood table in beautiful hardwood chairs amidst a plethora of
hard, unyielding surfaces at a roughly ninety-degree right angle to
one another, hands touching above the table and knees touching
beneath, scarcely an arm's length apart and completely unable to hear
one another without leaning in and shouting in each other's ears or
faces. Romantic it was not. When the waiter came over and shouted at
me regarding my order, I shouted back at him, attempting to explain
my hearing difficulty and directing him to attempt to communicate
with my wife, who could at least nominally understand what he was
saying/shouting. She would, in turn, point, sign, and shout to me and
thus convey whatever information the server was striving to
disseminate. There were at least two large tables nearby filled with
people celebrating birthdays or something and being served dishes
that featured literal fireworks. And even at the surrounding
“quieter” four and six-top tables, diners were all reduced to
shouting at one another, adding to the general din of unrelenting
sound bouncing off unpadded, unadorned walls, floors, windows, and
ceilings and hard furnishings. We were expecting my son to arrive in
town at any moment and when he called me, I felt rather than heard
his call and had to step out into the relative peace and quiet of a
busy New Orleans street to answer it, the crowd gathered outside
being much quieter than the one inside. Four of my five senses will
always remember fondly the experience they had at Meril. The fifth
one? Hearing? Not so much.
And it's not just the high-dollar, big
city places. There's a new eatery downtown in the tiny rural hamlet
where we live. My wife and I decided to check it out the other night.
Shades of Meril! Brick walls, stone floors, high metal ceilings, wood
furnishings. Only this was a “family” bar and grill, so in
addition to the boisterous bedlam created by the adult diners, there
was the added element of screeching children and bawling babies
factored in to the general cacophony. The food was good, but as we
were leaving we noticed an adjacent outdoor patio. Guess where we'll
sit next time. Even if it's raining.
On the other side of the coin, we were
dining at one of our favorite family-owned Italian places recently.
And it was packed; easily a hundred-twenty people or more occupying
nearly every available seat. And yet, as we sat in the midst of this
sea of noisy humanity, we were able to talk to one another and to
interact with our server in normal, conversational tones. Why?
Because it's “old school:” low, acoustic-tiled ceiling, padded
seats, draped windows – lots of sound-absorbing elements in the
construction and décor.
It's not just me being annoyed by this
raucous new trend. Others are noticing and commenting on the same
thing. A quick Google search of “loud restaurants” yields
numerous results: How Restaurants Got So Loud - The Atlantic; Why
restaurants became so loud — and how to fight back – Vox; Why Are
Restaurants So Loud? - Eater; Are Restaurants Getting Too Loud? |
Here & Now – WBUR; Why Restaurants Are So Loud These Days |
HowStuffWorks; It's not just you: Restaurants really are louder than
they used to be; and a host of other similar offerings on the
subject. Respondants to restaurant surveys by both Zagat and Consumer
Reports list excessive noise as their number one complaint.
Several sources cite the same motive
behind the noise: profit. They claim that restaurateurs are
deliberately cranking up the volume in order to turn tables more
quickly, the theory being that you'll find the loud atmosphere so
unpleasant you'll simply wolf down your food and leave. Could be: I
didn't linger at either of the aforementioned loud restaurants one
second longer than I had to.
Another reason for the unreasonable
noise has to do with the personal tastes of upscale chefs like Mario
Batali, David Chang and others. Back in the '90s, Batali was among
the first to inflict his personal musical taste on his customers.
Restaurant kitchens have always cranked up the tunes for kitchen
employees even though more subdued music usually played in the dining
area. Batali felt that his head-banger faves “energized” the
overall atmosphere and created what he considered a “New York
vibe.” And it wasn't long before other chef/restaurateurs followed
in the aural assault.
But the main factor behind the noise
seems simply to be the newest architectural “trend.” Whereas in
the middle of the last century, “upscale” and “elegant” were
equated with plush opulence, today's “high-end” establishments
follow a “minimalist” or “industrial” trend started in the
1970s. Lots of glass and steel and exposed brick. Soaring high
ceilings featuring open ductwork. These are the “elegant” spots
of the new dining era. And they're killing us. Or, at least they're
not doing us any good.
The author of one of the Googled
articles took a calibrated decibel meter into several places and
found that the noise level in a brewpub situated in a rehabbed fire
station reached ninety decibels. That's approximately as loud as an
approaching 737 or a DC-9 one mile out. It's as loud as a motorcycle
that's twenty-five feet away or as loud as a running newspaper press.
And more important than the aggravation factor is the health concern
for people who have to put up with it for extended periods of time.
Exposure to ninety decibels can damage your hearing after several
hours. Okay, so diners don't sit at tables for six or eight-hour
stretches, but employees are another matter.
Even short-term exposure is not
altogether healthy. Acoustic engineers studying what one MIT engineer
terms “aural architecture” have discovered that the atmosphere,
the noise level, the “voice,” if you will, of a space can
adversely affect the physical and mental health of people occupying
the space. Scientific research suggests that noisy settings have been
proven to annoy people, and noise annoyance itself has been linked to
depression and anxiety. I know extremely noisy places have always
tended to set my teeth on edge. And now, with the additional
complication of my hearing problem, well......I've been known to pull
out an earplug and stick it in my ear just to get through dinner.
One more factor contributes to the
overall noise problem in American restaurants and that factor is
Americans. By and large and with few exceptions, Americans are the
loudest, most boisterous people on the planet. I've been around
groups of Chinese who might come in a close second, but most folks
who study and evaluate such things agree that Americans are a bunch
of loudmouths. Theories on why this is so vary from Americans being
accustomed to having a lot of space, hence the tendency to shout, to
Americans loudly expressing their individualism to cultural and
social influences. But for whatever reason, put two or more Americans
in a quiet room and it won't be quiet for long, especially if you
lubricate their vocal cords with a little booze. Even stone cold
sober, though, Americans tend to exhibit an “I'm having a good
time, dammit, and to hell with anybody who doesn't like it”
attitude, and if you're unfortunate enough to be seated near a group
of these individualists, well......
The solutions to the problem aren't
abundant nor are they very promising. You can always complain to
management, which will usually get you a polite if insincere apology
and very little else. You can “shush” or stare angrily at
offending noisemakers – as long as you have A) good health
insurance and/or B) bail money. You can go at “off peak” times:
personally, I love having dinner at three in the afternoon. Or you
can avoid noisy places altogether: in other words, eat at home.
Seriously, people who like a more
tranquil dining experience, one with perhaps a bit less “energy,”
are pretty much stuck bucking the still-growing trend toward
minimalist industrial chic. And it's a trend which I doubt a few
complaints to management is going to reverse. Restaurant owners have
jumped on the bandwagon big time and they're not getting off until
the next big thing comes along. For one thing, it's cheaper to go
“industrial.” Sound dampening elements cost money, although there
are a few customer conscious innovators out there who manage to be
“trendy” while still keeping the atmosphere in their
establishments from deafening their patrons and employees. Kudos to
them, but good luck finding them. No, we're basically screwed. The
noise is going to continue unabated until enough diners lose their
appetites – or their hearing – to make it stop.
In the meantime, stop by a Walmart or a
sporting goods store on your way to dinner at that fancy “upscale”
place you've been wanting to try. Earplugs are cheap.
