How Restaurants Got So Loud • Hacker News Board

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#171

Post by lazerwalker » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

err4nt wrote: post #133

jlokier wrote: post #108

There's an ice cream and bagel place in town. In the late evening it's consistently packed with people on their laptops or reading books. One day I noticed the music was much louder than usual, and asked the staff to turn it down. I figured it was a mistake because it was normally much quieter. They told me this was the new company policy. To set the music uncomfortably loud to make people leave, after finishing thei…

It's funny how obvious some people make it that they don't want business. I don't really care about power plugs or wifi when I visit a café (my battery running out is a great motivator + natural time limit, I can tether to my phone for internet) but I always pay close attention to how a new café is outfitted. Some cafés that genuinely want your business make plugs available to the customers, some will even go as far…

It's not fair to say they "don't want business". They don't want certain forms of business — laptop coworkers — that in many cases are both low-profit customers and actively limit the throughput of total customers.

I had a good chat once with a guy who runs a small coffee roastery and number of fancy third-wave coffee shops in a posh university town. One of the most popular coffee shops in town went completely bankrupt and he ended up taking it over. The first thing he did was turn off the WiFi; to hear him tell it, revenue doubled or tripled overnight as soon as he did. Turns out actually having available seats can drive sales, and having a giant store in a high-rent area full of people who buy one $4 coffee and sit there for five hours isn't profitable. At the time, he was in the process of renovating half of the space to be formal paid coworking.

(I personally think there's room for middle ground. My favorite local coffee shop only allows laptops in a dedicated section, which has ample power but also higher-density seating than the normal area. When it's warm enough to sit outside, they allow laptops outside during the week but not on weekends. Another favorite coffee shop just turns the WiFi off on weekends.)

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#172

Post by hammock » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #142

kevincennis wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, of course. But it's much harder to actively cancel higher frequencies. This is why noise cancelling works brilliantly on an airplane (relatively low frequency background noise) but it does almost nothing to filter out the sounds of conversations around you.

I always thought it was because noise cancelling can only block repeated waves (like the sound of an engine whirring) but conversation is constant changing sound so it can’t be blocked.

Much easier to match pace with a wave with long wavelength than one with short

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#173

Post by spicymaki » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

winchling wrote: post #140

err4nt wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how obvious some people make it that they don't want business. I don't really care about power plugs or wifi when I visit a café (my battery running out is a great motivator + natural time limit, I can tether to my phone for internet) but I always pay close attention to how a new café is outfitted. Some cafés that genuinely want your business make plugs available to the customers, some will even go as far…

John Lawrence Aspden on eating-place pathology: http://johnlawrenceaspden.blogspot.com/2018/09/do-right-thin...

Agreed. The same can be applied to firms that bid on contracts. The firm who makes the most outlandish promises win. If you want to be honest, it is hard to compete, because your competitors won't be.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#174

Post by softawre » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #155

jlokier wrote: post #108

There's an ice cream and bagel place in town. In the late evening it's consistently packed with people on their laptops or reading books. One day I noticed the music was much louder than usual, and asked the staff to turn it down. I figured it was a mistake because it was normally much quieter. They told me this was the new company policy. To set the music uncomfortably loud to make people leave, after finishing thei…

Pret is really obviously doing the loud music thing too (and has for a couple of years at least). They lost my patronage. Not that they care: I think they had very good financials before their sale to Krispy Kreme. [aside rant] We have a very strange cafe culture in the UK compared to continental Europe: too many chains, too expensive, poor quality, takeaway coffee. The latest insult is chains not wanting to wash cup…

I mean, if you are bringing your own cup, just make your own coffee.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#175

Post by detaro » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #155

jlokier wrote: post #108

There's an ice cream and bagel place in town. In the late evening it's consistently packed with people on their laptops or reading books. One day I noticed the music was much louder than usual, and asked the staff to turn it down. I figured it was a mistake because it was normally much quieter. They told me this was the new company policy. To set the music uncomfortably loud to make people leave, after finishing thei…

Pret is really obviously doing the loud music thing too (and has for a couple of years at least). They lost my patronage. Not that they care: I think they had very good financials before their sale to Krispy Kreme. [aside rant] We have a very strange cafe culture in the UK compared to continental Europe: too many chains, too expensive, poor quality, takeaway coffee. The latest insult is chains not wanting to wash cup…

They require you bring a cup? Otherwise you just get a paper one or ...?

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#176

Post by solatic » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #108

There's an ice cream and bagel place in town. In the late evening it's consistently packed with people on their laptops or reading books. One day I noticed the music was much louder than usual, and asked the staff to turn it down. I figured it was a mistake because it was normally much quieter. They told me this was the new company policy. To set the music uncomfortably loud to make people leave, after finishing thei…

You can still find places where you can be served a beverage of your choice in a comfortable chair and tranquil setting. They just tend to have membership fees.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#177

Post by erikpukinskis » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

acct1771 wrote: post #156

erikpukinskis wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where have you seen the reading hate trend?

Go around and ask any people, younger people the better, what the last three books they've read are. Watch them struggle.

Not reading is one thing, hating books to be trendy is another.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#178

Post by keithpeter » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

tapland wrote: post #6

Locally (Stockholm, Sweden) the head of the city libraries has made a statement of battling the 'quietness norm' in libraries. Most of them now have playgrounds, one in Kista (where I happened to live at the time) won awards for best library in the world and in Sweden the same year. It was completely unusable for what me and my fiance usually do at the library. The study rooms had the ventilation system for the build…

No local university building with some public access or similar?

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#179

Post by blattimwind » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

adwhit wrote: post #14

keiferski wrote: post #7

I'd love to read an analysis of how the world in general has gotten so loud. Even a few hundred years ago, the centers of massive cities like Paris, Rome, or Istanbul must have been significantly quieter, being that cars, horns, trains, speakers, boomboxes, industrial plants, airplanes and everything else that creates noise pollution didn't exist.

Cars must surely be the main cause. There is an interesting phenomenon known as "shifting baseline syndrome" where we tend to compare our environment to what we recall as a child and inevitably conclude that is has gotten nosier/busier/more polluted, not realizing that environment of our childhoods were already heavily degraded. The world in which we evolved would have been almost silent, almost all of the time, apar…

Woods are not quiet.

Re: How Restaurants Got So Loud

#180

Post by keithpeter » Wed, Nov 28, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #163

err4nt wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how obvious some people make it that they don't want business. I don't really care about power plugs or wifi when I visit a café (my battery running out is a great motivator + natural time limit, I can tether to my phone for internet) but I always pay close attention to how a new café is outfitted. Some cafés that genuinely want your business make plugs available to the customers, some will even go as far…

I think this is a very uncharitable view of the situation. Some coffee shops don't want to pivot into coworking spaces and that's okay. Personally I think it's a match made in heaven since a day pass at a nice coworking space is around $10 which is like two drinks but I get that some businesses would prefer to just sell coffee.

$10 per day seems a low price to me. I have no experience of co-working spaces but I'm thinking of the costs of running a room with say 20 working spaces in it at the usual rent/rates/utilities...