3 Tips to Controlling Restaurant Noise

The last time you frequented your favorite restaurant, bar, nightclub or local pub, odds are good that you experienced an elevated level of noise inside the room. While a certain level of background noise is good, indicating to the restaurant owner, employees and guests, that the bustle of activity is good and represents a rebound in the economy. But at a certain point, the noise becomes intrusive and serves to force conversations into louder decibel ranges. As the background noise continues to climb, communication becomes strained, and repeat business becomes threatened. To protect the comfort of the guests, and deliver a more user friendly space for all to enjoy, steps can be taken to control the level of background noise in the room.

To understand the soundproofing treatment options, one should first recognize that the human ear actually detects two sound signals simultaneously. The first sound is the original sound made, followed immediately by the second sound which was a wave that first reflected off a nearby surface and then reached your ear. To lower the level of sound in a restaurant, the goal is to simply control the second sound. By colllapsing the level of echo in the room, you restore the room to good quality acoustics and allow your guests to converse in normal conversational tones. Without treating the echo, the room's decibel levels will climb through the night and destroy the room's acoustics.

Sound panels are available to surface mount in a room. They are designed to capture and convert the unwanted echo. Most restaurant owners agree that anchoring acoustic panels to the perimeter walls ruins the design of the room. The question then surfaces, where can sound abatement panels be placed so as to not ruin the look of the establsihment. Our first tip addresses the common mistake that many restaurant owners make. Acoustic foam should not be placed into a restaurant. While it is true that foam absorbs echo and produces great sound results, it is not class A fire rated, and should not be placed in a public venue. Also, foam is a degradable product that crumbles and flakes to dust over time, spilling particles into your ventilation system and dispersing over a crowd of people consuming food or beverage. Again, the concept is right, but the product choice is not.

Your better alternative is to focus your attention to the ceiling. Ceiling mounted sound panels can dramatically reduce the level of noise in the room without interfering with the design or decor of your surrounding walls. Ceiling Clouds are easily self installed, they are decorative panels that are cloth wrapped in a variety of colors and mechanically suspended from your ceiling. This is not a drop grid tile system, you do not need 100% coverage in your room. Tip #2 is to target the ceiling, not the walls.

Finally, the key to the success of your treatment has everything to do with quantities. Safeguard against over treating your room, you do not need full wall or ceiling coverage with these panels to produce the results you are seeking, nor do you want to undertreat the room and place too few of these pieces in. The quantities required for your treatment are based entirely on the size, shape and surface texutres in your room, which in turn equate to the square foot totals you should be introducing.

Remember, Ceiling Clouds absorb echo, add a nice decorative touch to your room, and allow you to leave the walls of your establishment alone. Clouds are fire rated, easy to self install, and do a great job of cleaning out the acoustics in your room to deliver a more favorable experience for your customers, and locking them into a repeat pattern of returning time and again to your facility.


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Mark Rustad created one of the first, most expansive online websites in the field of soundproofing more than 20 years ago. He has defined hundreds of vertical market applications for a variety of acoustical materials, with 10,000+ venues receiving treatments produced by his company NetWell Noise Control. For more information visit NetWell online at www.controlnoise.com