Restaurant acoustics—Unconducted and sometimes unintended orchestrations—An overview

Abstract

The modern restaurant, such as the modern concert hall, is a societal orchestration on many levels including and involving acoustics. The restaurant overlays a business approach, diner tastes, architecture, and other socio-economic factors in superimposed circles of interaction thought to be planned but in action often unanticipated with unwitting consequences. The n-dimensional influences of restaurant acoustics have distinct parallels with the n-dimensional influences of concert hall acoustics. In a concert hall, it is not enough to have architectural beauty, a quiet background and good acoustics in the audience area if onstage acoustics do not support the musicians as individuals in an ensemble. If players must expend concentration on coping instead of elevating unhindered into their art, the quality the audience desires of the music cannot be reached. But if both onstage and audience area acoustics are good, the music soars, audiences keep coming and paying, all participants reap positive rewards, and the organization is successful and self-perpetuating. In this overview, we suggest that the influence of a restaurant’s acoustics on its success/satisfaction outcome is perhaps even more complex with more human dimensions and less known than that of the concert hall but that observing and considering these parallels may be beneficial.