Effective Solutions to Help Control the Acoustics in Your Bar or Restaurant
Customers come to your bar or restaurant for an experience worth paying for, and the acoustics within your space can influence the type of experience they have at your establishment.
It may be somewhat expected for a busy bar to be noisy and a full restaurant to be loud, but it’s important that noise levels don’t reach the point where they start to impede on the experience had by your customers!
“The Lombard Effect: The involuntary tendency of speakers to increase their vocal effort when speaking in loud noise to enhance the audibility of their voice. ”
Acoustic solutions aren't always a business' first priority, but they’re a huge consideration throughout our interior design projects whether it be for offices or for bars and restaurants.
Our interior design solutions dig deeper than the look and feel of a space and instead put a primary focus on the experience it will give to your customers. It’s this experience that shapes a customers’ perception of your brand, after all!
Making steps to improve the acoustics in your bar or restaurant can help you to shape a wonderful ambience and an experience your customers will be raving about for a long time to come!
The following solutions can go a long way in helping to control the noise levels in your premises:
1. Biophilic Design
When it comes to effective acoustic solutions for restaurants and bars, the abilities of indoor plants is often lesser known.
You might already be aware of our love for biophilic design, and the natural ability of plants to absorb sound is one of the many reasons why!
Indoor plants can be featured in a wide variety of ways. In addition to potted plants, there's the opportunity to get really creative with your biophilic design.
Living walls are becoming increasingly popular and they're a great visual and acoustic feature. These make great use of the vertical space on offer, as too can hanging vines and suspended planters.
2. Acoustic Wall and Ceiling Panels
The materials used throughout bars and restaurants have a huge impact on the acoustics of a space.
The hard and shiny surfaces, that often feature throughout your favourite eateries and weekend hangouts, are the biggest culprit for poor acoustics and they are so prevalent given that exposed brick, concrete features and minimalistic spaces are extremely on trend and sought after within the industry!
However, sound absorbing materials are a great way of helping to lower noise levels in bars and restaurants. We're big advocates of acoustic panels in interior design as they are specifically designed to absorb noise and improve the acoustics of your space.
Acoustic absorption panels come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and can be used on walls and ceilings in a range of creative ways to ensure they keep with the feel and flow of your interior.
Ceilings have a huge impact on the way that noise travels throughout a space. Suspended Acoustic ceiling panels can be a great way to reduce echos made by high ceilings or the reverberation created by large ceiling voids.
3. Effective Furniture Selection
How great is it when you get seated at a booth in a bar or restaurant? They're great for giving you a little privacy from other diners and are usually comfier than the average restaurant chair!
What's even better, though, are their acoustic qualities. Many booths feature raised backs and soft materials that are great at absorbing noise and helping to control the noise levels within an open space.
Furniture variations in general can also help to balance out the acoustics in an interior. Same-level seating is a playground for loud noises, so it's a great idea to mix it up and provide different tiers of seating arrangements.
4. Soft Furnishings
To balance out the harder, non-acoustically friendly materials in your interior, introducing soft materials is an effective restaurant acoustic solution that also helps your space to look friendly and welcoming. Soft materials work to absorb noise and can prevent a space from being too echoey, which can contribute to poor acoustics within your bar or restaurant.
5. Thoughtful Floor Plan
Your chosen floor plan should be designed with acoustics in mind from the start. Tables situated close to one another are naturally more likely to cause problems acoustically, but the arrangement of furniture within your premises can help to minimise this.
Separating your seating with indoor plants, partitions, sculptures and seated booths can all help to reduce this effect. They also add some fantastic visual variation that will benefit the overall aesthetics of your space.
There are many effective acoustic solutions for restaurants and bars, and the key is to find the right ones to complement your space and enhance your customer experience.
Get in touch if you’d like to chat about ways you can reduce the amount of unwanted noise within your bar or restaurant.
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