We would like quiet with our meals out

Quiet, puh-leez!

My husband and I have just left a mall restaurant,and my ears are still ringing.

It seems you can’t go anywhere, even bookstores, without being bombarded by music, some of it loud and throbbing. But to me, the worst offenders are restaurants.

In my antediluvian childhood we didn’t eat out much and, when we did, it was usually at a coffee shop. In very rare instances, we went to a “nice restaurant” with padded booths, cloth napkins, heavy silverware, formal waiters and hushed interiors, which meant best manners and quiet talking with frequent parental shushing and the admonishment, “Keep your voice down!”

Background music was instrumental, soothing and understated.

No matter where we went, we were not to disturb others. Eating out meant enjoying good food and conversation in quiet to normal speaking tones.

How quaint.

Nowadays, most American families eat out frequently. The days of coffee shop versus fine dining have gone the way of the eight-track tape.

Today’s contemporary midprice restaurant chain, which usually includes a bar, wants to project a casual, “happening” feel. To do this, their facilities are acoustically built to be noisy, which accentuates vitality, with tile floors, glassed sections and high ceilings that would amplify a fly’s cough.

The music is bouncy, and the volume’s on high – so high, I can’t even hear people with me unless they raise their voices over it.

This problem becomes restaurantwide, as everyone strains to be heard over one another, their neighbors and the music as the decibels rise. Conversation deteriorates into a yelling match.

Shouting customers and wait staff, dish-rattling, shrieking children, cell phone ring tones and driving background music become a symphony of shattering sound.

Ooh, I feel relaxed.

Lest anyone waiting outside to be seated feel left out, the music is piped outdoors so everyone can enjoy the precursor to the cacophony within, which blasts diners upon entering.

“Well, what a sourpuss,” you may be thinking.

OK, I’m a grump. A grump who hopes not to be wearing hearing aids in the next decade or so.

But I’m not a lone grump.

According to the Audiology Awareness Campaign, restaurant noise is one of the most common complaints of audiologists’ patients (see www.audiologyawareness.com/help/restaurant.htm). But those with normal hearing also complain.

Two University of California, San Francisco, audiology researchers studied decibel levels in restaurants and discovered them to be “well beyond the tolerance of any listener,” with peak levels in some reaching up to 140 decibels. Normal conversation is about 45 decibels.

Family and fine-dining restaurants fared best in low noise levels, but the rest were problematic for normal conversation regardless of hearing abilities.

Zagat Survey, which reviews over 15,000 restaurants nationally, rated complaints about restaurant noise second only to poor service. They suggest all restaurant reviewers include a noise-rating in their reviews, as some are already doing.

Now that would be a service!

Long ago my husband and I attempted to, but never ate at a famous downtown Spokane restaurant that was a pioneer in decibel dining. The almost physical wall of music and noise drove us away even before being seated.

Now clattery, noisy, boom-box restaurants are the norm. It’s difficult to find good food with a little quiet on the side.

Even at fine-dining establishments, clueless people lack volume control, talking as if they’re in a sports bar.

We have asked restaurants to turn down the music; some comply by turning it down a notch or two, which we appreciate. But it’s still pretty noisy, making it difficult to unwind and enjoy a pleasant meal and conversation.

We tend to frequent places with a quieter ambience; usually we’re not in the mood to gear ourselves up for the auditory assault.

I love eating out. Food always tastes better when I don’t have to cook it and clean up afterward.

The “happening” restaurants are nice places with good service and food, and the few we go to can accommodate my strict celiac no-gluten diet needs. I just wish they’d lower the tidal wave of sound.

But, if I want to enjoy gustatory variety, I guess sometimes this poor antediluvian will just have to endure the flood.