Marshall interesting article on rest. noise. John
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- December 30, 1997
Restaurants Bring In da Noise
As They Try to Keep Out da Nerds
By ANDREA PETERSEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
If it seems like most trendy restaurants are serving up deafening disco music,
table-shaking techno and throbbing "drum 'n' bass" alongside $30 plates of
seared tuna these days, it isn't just your grumpy imagination.
Restaurants catering to
scene-conscious Generation Xers
have moved disk jockeys from the
dance floor into the dining room,
cranked up the volume and picked up
the beat. They say the noise makes
their places vibrant and hip. And
commercial motives are also at play:
Ear-splitting techno keeps out the
frumpy over-30 crowd -- and makes
diners eat faster. That means more
"table turns" in a night -- and more
revenue.
Restaurants "do it to get people agitated so they eat faster, talk more, drink
more," says Stephanie Coulter, a manager at BoKaos in Beverly Hills,
Calif., where patrons jam to funk between bites of Chilean sea bass. While
she denies that her restaurant tries to get patrons dancing out the door, she
concedes that, "The faster the music, the younger the crowd."
Creating all that restaurant noise is big business. Companies like AEI Music
of Seattle provide thousands of restaurants with music to attract customers
and get them to spend more. Even Seattle-based Muzak LP, once
synonymous with soothing elevator music, now offers disco and rock. "You
pick up the tempo to get people to eat quickly and get out quickly and use a
slower tempo to make people linger," says AEI spokeswoman Judith
Berrett.
That phenomenon has scientific backup. In a study conducted at Fairfield
University in Fairfield, Conn., fast- and slow-paced music was piped into
the school's cafeteria on alternating days while researchers counted the bites
taken by unsuspecting diners. The results, published in the Bulletin of the
Psychonomic Society: People chew an average of 4.4 bites a minute to fast
music and only 3.83 bites a minute when the music is slow.
Some chains have even used volume as a method of crowd control. When
the original Hard Rock Cafe opened in London to packed houses and long
lines, the proprietors concede they cranked up the music to drive people
out. (That practice has stopped, they say.)
All of the nine Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grills have fully
computerized sound systems that automatically play faster and louder songs
at the times of the day when the restaurant wants to turn more tables.
"The format is designed to make money," says Don Blanton, who created
the system. And if a rattled customer complains? Too bad. The system
prevents individual restaurant managers from lowering the volume. "A lot of
the managers try to turn the music down because they think it's too loud for
people eating. So we've put in an automated system," Mr. Blanton says.
Many diners still long for the sound of silence when they eat. Zagat Survey
LLC, publisher of the popular restaurant guides, says noise has surged to
the No. 2 complaint among its survey participants, right behind service. The
company is even considering adding a fifth ratings category, to gauge a
restaurant's noise level.
Still, Zagat spokesman Allan Ripp says the DJ fad may be here to stay. "It's
the Generation X equivalent of a cocktail pianist," he says.
Many owners are unapologetic about their decibel-drenched spaces.
Oskar's in Boston is owned by 27-year-old Jeffrey Unger, who plays what
he likes -- acid jazz and disco. He also owns his own record shop and an
independent label that features, not surprisingly, acid jazz. Oskar's, named
after the owner's dog, is no grub house. Dinner for two runs about $80, but
pricey doesn't mean sedate. "When we rock, we rock," Mr. Unger says.
Alex Bueno de Moraes, 27, an owner of New York's newly opened
Waterloo Brasserie, says the "ambient" and drum 'n' bass music the DJ
plays helps draw the music and fashion people he likes to see in his austere,
industrial space. So does Waterloo's 3 a.m. closing time. His patrons
"usually don't have to get up as early as everybody else," he says.
The importance of the musical atmosphere has given some DJs almost as
much clout as maitre d's. At Cafe Atlantico in Washington, D.C., the DJ has
his own booth overlooking the restaurant and doubles as the bartender on
busy nights. "The music is at the heart of our restaurant," says Todd
Thrasher, Cafe Atlantico's manager. "The music gets turned up and the
customers get turned up also. It's very loud."
The volume, like everything else, is probably highest in New York. At
Circa, DJ Neil Aline sets his turntables on the edge of the bar, his albums
stacked next to a row of Cosmopolitan vodka drinks. A few blocks away, a
restaurant named Avenue A serves up what regulars have dubbed "disco
sushi" because of the place's hyper DJ and silver disco ball. Another trendy
New York site, the appropriately named Boom, pushes the clublike
atmosphere even further: To get in, you have to get past a velvet rope and
burly bouncer.
Other rocking restaurants are otherwise quite restrained. On a recent
Saturday night at New York's Il Bagatto, a deceptively homey Italian
trattoria with exposed brick walls, the flames in the candles flickered to the
thump-thump of hip-hop and funk. Diners wearing all black waved forks in
the air to the beat.
"I like to see the customers dance in their seats," says co-owner Beatrice
Tosti Di Valminuta, whose younger brother spins the records. But the din
almost kept away loyal patron David Wargo, who brought a balky date.
"Now that she's seen it, her ears are blown," says the 34-year-old money
manager.
Some people hate this trend. "Why have music that's like a hammer hitting a
wall?" says Philippe Tosques, general manager of Chicago's highly-rated
restaurant Everest. "If we did that we'd have everyone standing up and
asking us to turn it off."
The dance music at Scratch in New York's SoHo neighborhood drove
Natalie Milani and her friends out the door even as the maitre d' was trying
to get them to stay. "It was like being in a disco," the 27-year-old
accountant complains. "Conversation loses its spontaneity when you have to
repeat yourself three times."
Many of the young and restless flock to the cacophony, anyway. "It's great.
You don't really feel like you're eating," says Michele Tanzer, 26, a financial
analyst, while eating and bopping to the DJ-spun disco at New York's E &
O restaurant. And there is this upside, says Jackie Randall, 36, a nursing
student: "If you're on a boring date, you can pretend like you're listening to
who you're with but really you're listening to the music."
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