If you consider a sports bar that is mainly known for its food a restaurant, then yes. Many times in those kinds of places it’s too noisy. If I’m going out to eat with folks, we generally want to talk with each other in a reasonably quiet place. They should leave the noisy to clubs and music venues. They usually serve enough that you won’t go hungry socializing with folks you don’t want to talk to anyway. A review might be nice, but then that’s always subjective. And night to night it would vary if they had many noisy kids in there or not. Or a group of drunk adults.

Have to agree with Slugger (first time!) on this, it is a very subjective thing. So is the rating on the food for that matter. I would stick to critiquing the food if I was the P-D.

I and my group of friends go out to various restarurants routinely, and this is often a complaint that we have. We don’t always see each other as much as we’d like to, so a noisy restaurant really ruins the experience for us since we’d like to be able to easily communicate with each other. Background noise has always been a problem for me, so I will not return to any restaurant where I can’t hear a person sitting next to me. A rating like this would really help me choose a restaurant. Also, how about a cigarette smoke rating? The “non-smoking” section in many restaurants is a joke.

Anything above the usual din of a home is too much.
Anytime I need to yell to be heard, it’s too noisy.
I won’t be back.

A nice loud restaurant is perfect when the in-laws are in town.

I’m with Slugger (et al) on this one. I go to restaurants to eat and converse with my companions. If I wanted noise, excitement, and no ability to communicate without screeching, I’d head for a different venue. But before a critic labels a place as loud or quiet, said critic should visit said restaurant on different days at different times of the day. The early Tuesday lunch crowd may be a whole different kettle of fish than the late evening Saturday drunken after-an-event patrons. So I’d pretty well ask the critic to stick to the general food and atmosphere comments and leave the end user to exercise his own judgment regarding decibel level.

Noise is “subjective”? I thought it is determined by decibel’s. (S) There are 12 in our group, Four smoke. So the 1st requirement of any restaurant is that they allow smoking. None are allowed to have smoking around here. We solved the problem by taking turns of providing the food will be cooked. It is then cooked at my house My dining room has lots of glass and a great view of the lake that abuts my property on 3 sides.

Now to decibels, the loudest thing that one will hear is a dog barking off in the distance. We always chose a restaurant that had little noise before we switched to eating at my house. While nobody in our group has any money problems, we now eat better tasting food than you can find in 5 star restaurant, it cost’s less than what WE TIPPED AT A RESTARAUNT.

Kurt you picked a good topic. I’ll digress in my next post.

Back in March I had a date this older chick and we went to Jive and Wail. It was too loud and it was hard to speak and be heard, although that is what you would expect. We went down to Boogaloo, but it was still too loud. The date went very bad, so I learned that when you go out on those first few dates it is best to avoid the noisy spots.

Regardless, I’m glad it didn’t go any further, because she was apparently a psycho and a total gold digger.

Whether or not “good” food is served, I avoid loud restaurants whenever I can. So I typically do not frequent restaurants in the Landing, several in the CWE, most along Washington downtown, and a few “on the hill”, and one or two in Clayton.

sounds like a huge waste of time

Noise:

When I first moved to Illinois, I looked around for the best price on 30 inch tiller and a garden tractor, Sears had exactly what I wanted. right in tho front of their store. (Independent store..selling only sears Products)

I went home, got my truck and pulled a trailer behind to buy them.

In the meantime, some acid rock station had pulled up their ban in front of the store and was blasting “music” that would reach 200 decibels. The door was propped open. I went inside and removed the prop that was holding the door open.,The radio station rep yelled at me, and opened the door, again.

I drove two blocks away and Called Sears Corporate what had happened. I told them to call the store and hear the noise for themselves. They did. They sent me a $750.00 coupon to use in any Sears Store. I sent it back to them and asked , How could I possibly use it? I won’t ever go into one of your stores again.

re johnh

They didn’t have Sears back then. It is a rather new store, like Piggly Wiggly.

I’m with Pat C on this, a single measurement won’t tell the story. You would need to leave the meter in the restaurant for a month, and log average the dB readings. Loud restaurants can have quiet days, and quiet ones can have loud times. Without a bigger sample of measurements, we won’t know if the PD’s number is a fluke.

On topic, I prefer a quiet restaurant, never a loud one. The food and drink could be great, but if I can’t even talk to my wife, what’s the point? I might as well be eating alone – which is not fun.

I refuse to go to Red Robin because it’s always so incredibly loud in their restaurants. I don’t feel like screaming just because I want to sit down with my family and have an over-priced burger.

Robber, you are funny. Buth how about admitting your date went sour because of who she was with, and not blame it on noise, or lack therof? Try taking one to Sears where you can’t hear any conversation. She might like you. LOL

I agree that loud atmospheres are not good for dining. I wish people would have considered that when developing the trend of the “exposed” kitchen in restaurants. I don’t go out to eat to see line cooks at work banging pans and plates around. I’ve never understood why that is appealing and I’m always sat near the kitchen or with a full view of the kitchen. The kitchen noise adds to the din of the full room and it’s too much. I can see and hear the line cooks at Steak & Shake, I don’t need to see it when I’m out for dinner with friends. Oh, and if your kid is fussy - take it out of the room instead of subjecting everyone else to them bang the end of their fork on the table forever. How can you tune that out?? Better yet, get a sitter!

Thank goodness someone else enjoys being able to hear a conversation while dining! For my husband and I, it’s not the patrons that are overly loud, it’s the “background” music, and I’m talking about family restaurants, not clubs. We often ask that the music volume be changed to a lower level. As far as the rating…I don’t know that patrons will take the time to look at the results but would hope that the restaurants do and would adjust the environment accordingly.

I hate loud restaurants. I have worn two high power hearing aids since I was in elementary school. I have to turn them off while in loud restaurants. You may think that it’s a good thing to be able to do that. When we are out with friends, I just sit there and smile when everyone else does. Nothing is worse than some jerk answering his or her cell phone with a very loud hello and start laughing like they are sitting on a feather. There is no reason that cell phones have to be on in restaurants. The buss people don’t have to clang dishes together while busing tables either. I think a lot of noise could be eliminated if someone made a big deal about it. I’m glad you brought this up and hopefully something will come out of it.

I would have to say the loudest restaurant I have been to in awhile is Pi, across from the Pageant. That said, I love that place. The pizza is great, the staff is super friendly, they have dollar PBR’s during happy hour, and I can’t remember the last time I saw as crazy of a combination of wall fixtures and bamboo scenes plastered behind the bar. So if you don’t mind the sound (and who really does mind sound when eating in the Loop?) then go to Pi.

We recently went to TGI Fridays for a casual meal with our three kids and my MIL. The din was so annoying that we will not go back. Yes, I know it is a casual family restaurant, but it was too loud to talk across the table and be heard (and the table was not that large). Also, it was very crowded with tables and chairs much too close together IMO. It was hopping with a large crowd of patrons too and that combined with the background music cranking made for a very unpleasant experience. We will not go back even though the food was fine for a casual dining experience. Being irritated by the extreme amount of noise during the whole meal and not being able to move without bothering someone else made it most unpleasant indeed and just not worth the trouble.

Wow, there are some crabby people in this world! With that said, normally, when we’re planning to go out to dinner, we take into account what day of the week it is and what time of day it is. Of course a restaurant is going to be louder on a Friday at 6 than it is on a Tuesday at 4. You also have to consider what sort of place you’re going. Of course a sports bar during happy hour is going to be louder than other places.
Now that I have a 1 year old, I certainly am more consious of where we go when. Thankfully, my daughter is pretty well behaved (comments from people when we go out to dinner and on a plane have confirmed this) so we havne’t gotten the dirty looks we used to give when around parents who are oblivious to the noise their kids are making.
Personally, I feel noise level IS subjective so I’m not sure how a reviewer can rate this. Although, sometimes restaurant experiences are subjective as well, so like most reviews, you almost have to take what they say with a grain of salt then go and form your own opinions.

Christine, a growing number of bars and restaurants in St. Louis, despite the threat of a smoking ban, are installing air filtration systems to take all the junk out of their air, not just tobacco smoke. The improvement in their air quality is dramatic. I wish the Post would do a story on this.
These systems are quiet too.

http://www.marthbrothers.com/Indoor_Enviro_Solutions.html

Great. Now we can add “It’s too noisy in here!” to the list of things aging Baby Boomers demand to know before they eat out. They already gripe about smoking, the number of toilets, and whether they can get their walkers in the front door. The next step will be when Joe Bonwich describes the softness of the creamed corn and which eateries offer their customers complimentary Depends.

Bob Evans is open for dinner at 4pm. Go there and leave the rest of us alone!

You can be in a very quiet restaurant where theres just one very loud speaking person that causes annoyance. I had that happen to me just last week, he was sitting behind me and he knew almost everyone that walked in the place and started a conversation. I couldn’t talk or hear anything but his conversations. It was annoying but hey, that’s life! Get over it!

Its a shame that the PD waste it time on something so trite and trivia.In the PD’s glory days it was the issues of war,provety,racism,social in-justice,political corruption,etc.Now the PD wastes its efforts on something as travia as noise levels in restraunts.How sad.

Seems like at least a few of the commenters have missed the key points of the system, the main being that I’m not doing this, and the rating is as empirically objective as possible.

It’s going to be done by grad students working on their doctorates in audiology under the supervision of an expert in sound measurement. They’ll be going to the restaurants in prime time on busy nights, and the measurements take average sound readings over an extended time period.

It’s also just a data point: If you’re bothered by loud restaurants, you’ll have a factually comparable measurement for deciding whether or not to go, much the same way as if you’re bothered by smoke, a restaurant’s decision to be smoke-free might influence your choice of where to go.

Loud restaurant? Never. A little noise and bustle, sure. But the only time I like loud is after I’ve spent the evening with my 94-year-old mother. She needs particularly quiet places to hold any kind of conversation since she can’t hear much of anything. After 2-3 hours of that, and the slow-motion pace that’s all she can manage, give me loud music, give me dancing, give me noise and activity. But that’s in a bar, not a restaurant.

We recently went to dinner to celebrate my wife’s birthday. I bought her one of those embarassing musical cards. The restaurant was so loud she had to hold the card up to her ear to hear it. Of course, no one else could hear it either. The food was good, but I’ll think twice before going there again.

Come on Joe! You can’t honestly expect these people to READ THE STORY before commenting on it, can you! I think it’s great that you’ll be reporting actual data regarding restaraunt’s noise levels during prime times. I refuse to go to places where all the lemmings go during rush hour. TGIF, The Olive Garden, Casa Gallardo. They practically stack the tables on top of each other so they can seat more sheep for more plain fare. Then you have 100 people standing in the lobby waiting for 45 minutes as if there were no other food in the world to be had. Those places are so loud at those times, one can’t hear themselves think, not that many of the people standing there waiting are doing much thinking….

NEVER! Never, ever, ever! If a restaurant is so loud that I’m distracted and can’t hear a conversation, I will not return to it.

As a parent of a hearing impaired person, the noise level of a restaurant is a huge factor in our choice of restaurant. I welcome this additional information in restaurant reviews. I do agree, that noise levels will be different depending on the day of the week and time.

Newmommy…I hope you don’t think I was dissing kids by my comments. I like them around when I eat. And most that are misbehaving are tolerable. Loud is different than pathological craziness. Their idiotic half-blind parents who don’t see they don’t have enough parenting skills to be breeding are the things that are hard to tolerate. They seem to be increasing, but maybe that’s my imagination.

I’d welcome the “sound ratings”. My husband and I eat out 2-3 times a week and have seldom been able to find a peaceful, calm and serene place to go out to eat. We feel like we are eating in a school cafeteria sometimes. If we do find a quiet restaruant it usually the pricier establishments. When can we expect these ratings to be announced to the public (available online?) Thanks!

A noisy restaurant is the lesser of two evils, compared to a smoky one. Especially if the restaurant has a good jukebox, like Blueberry Hill.

Being one who has hearing problems my sympathies for those affected runs a bit shallow. I wear two hearing aids (not the itty bitty ones) and I can’t think of any restaurants that I go to where I can sit at a table of more than two and hear the folks who I talk with clearly. Does it keep me from going? No, restaurants are about food to me. I sit and eat. Then nod my head a lot. Sometimes I get it right, most times….I just see the humor in it.

Seriously though. Part of the problem with many restaurants is that large groups of folks think it’s the place to gather and socialize, noisily. Believe it or not when these groups start talking back and forth across large tables…….you get the picture? Multiply this by ten tables. Then folks wonder why it’s hard to hear? Duh!

Most of you that are having trouble hearing should check out your hearing. You probably have gotten to a point where you have some hearing loss.

Maybe some day a real smart restaurant owner will think about acoustics. There are ways to make sound not carry. Sound is pretty bouncy. If you can keep it from bouncing off of things you have a chance.

When my wife and I go out to eat a meal, we usually choose a relatively quiet restaurant. We actually like talking to one another and carrying on a conversation. Places that are too noisy, be it from a band, oblivious dolts on cell phones, or a juke box, we usually turn around and leave.

If we are going for the “entertainment” then we are prepared to listen and not worry about eating. I seldom find really good food at noisy restaurants (and no, a “sports bar” is not a restaurant in my book).

So, Joe, not only would we appreciate the decibel check, but also the “smokiness” check as well.

If you look at the article it’s about the patients of an audiologist. I can’t think of many people that hear good that see an audiologist regularly.

All you other folks that have problems. Maybe you should see an audiologist.

In response to Susan: We have to wait for the students to come back in August. We’re guessing sometime in September for the ratings to appear in reviews — and we’re also planning to add sound ratings for about 50 popular restaurants into our online database at that time. Then we’ll keep adding the new ones weekly and updating established restaurants on an incremental basis.

Most new restaurants in the city are being built in old rehabbed, buildings with high ceilings and bad acoustics. It has never bothered my friends as we dined and conversed. If you can’t hear well when you go out to eat, you need to invest in a “Listen Up” device that they sell on TV. The commercial is usually between commercials for Hover Rounds and AARP insurance…
Or just stay home….

Watch out jek. If you keep going out to those noisy restaurants, the high decibels will affect your ability to hear and you may need that “listen up” device someday. Both the decibel levels and the smoking issue in restaurants are health issues and I’m glad they are being addressed for the good of all. You rock Joe.

Great idea! Very useful for taking the parents out….

I won’t return to loud restaurants; the excessive noise from loud diners trying to be heard over noisy “background” music, sports televisions, tile floors and crashing silverware/dishware detracts heavily from my enjoyment of the meal.

I wonder how many readers favor laws restricting sound levels in St. Louis bars, restaurants and concert venues?

http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2008/05/protect-st-louis-symphony-orchestra.html

What a terrific plan! I have no interest in going to noisy restaurants where the owners apparently think “noisy means exciting.” If I want noise and excitement, I’ll go to a rock concert. Like some earlier posts, I’ll get takeout or cook at home rather than shout at my companions.

It would be great to have dinner& conversation w/out loud music, dishes rattling, babies crying, just a nice quiet evening w/spouse or friend.
Dining out should be relaxing & enjoyable,not ear busting & indigestion.

I’ve got two well-behaved but young children. Personally, I hate loud restaurants and would welcome such a rating by the Post-Dispatch, especially if qualified (e.g. “At 8:00 on a weeknight . . . “).

But when we’re out with the kids, we prefer “family” restaurants that are a little louder. That way, we can relax and enjoy our meals, if not conversation, without worrying about every noise our children might make.

I abhor loud restaurants. The trend these days seems to be toward high, open-duct work ceilings (following an east coast trend at least a decade old) with ducts exposed. This creates way too loud a space. Even nice restaurants like Cyranos in Webster have succumbed to this. If there are 3 or 4 people in there it sounds like you’re in a train station. Ditto for the newish Llewelyns in Webster. I went a few times but it was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think, much less have a conversation. I won’t go to really loud restaurants to dine or chat with friends over a drink.

WHY??!! - I have always been amazed and perplexed at the human “trait” that results in raising ones voice level immediately on being seated in a restaurant. Friends conversing at normal levels suddenly raise the decibles considerably just after being seated, and likewise at the tables surrounding, the voices booming! Although I have a hearing loss, I can plainly understand what is being said several tables away. What is the human psychology that triggers this spontaneous need to turn up the volume at the dining table? Does it go back to our caveman forebears who on squatting around the fire grasping a chunk of meat, so dangerously acquired, had to express his pride and joy in his accomplishment.

It’s not the loud talk that gets me, usually, but the loud music or other programming that the restaurant runs. I been numerous places where this was a problem. As an example, I went to the Twister’s in Weldon Spring shortly after it opened after work one day as a send off for a couple of “retirees” and folks who were moving on to another job. The music was so loud my friends and I had to yell and that was before anyone had too much beer. We couldn’t hear the waitress either. Later I went with my husband who wanted to try it, but again, the music was so loud, we couldn’t hear the waitress and she couldn’t hear us. It wasn’t worth it. The food was good, but why bother to go with friends when you can’t hear yourself. As pointed out in earlier posts, the decor was open ceiling with exposed H/AC vent pipe which only makes the noise situation worse. If I want to listen to music, I wouldn’t choose a restaurant, unless I was there for the “live” band that comes on after 9 in some places……I suggest with the comments that the PD would be subjective on a one time only visit, that you let the readers rate places on a one to five scale for volume, conversation, restaurant clatter, or music. All affect our eating enjoyment.

I would love to have restaurant reviews that include sound ratings. Many times I have gone to a new place and then left immediately because it was too noisy. (I always let the host/ess know that’s the reason, and they often look confused. But then they are often very young.) Please add this feature as soon as possible.