Why Are L.A. Restaurants So Damn Loud?

THE FIRST NIGHT THAT THE new Los Feliz hotspot Vandell — a comfort food place with a vintage pub aesthetic that veers perilously close to “upscale Olive Garden” — was open, I had to scream out my incredibly simple drink order (gin martini, dry, twist) like I was a down-market auctioneer. The poor bartender had to keep his eyes fixed directly on my lips, trying to ensure he got the request just right, though I did have to repeat myself — but louder this time, as though I was Denzel Washington dropping into a monologue in the movie Malcolm X. 

Most of us, at least the rational folks, believe bars, cocktail lounges, and restaurants, especially in Los Angeles, are too loud. The music and chaos of the average cutting-edge eating establishment drown out the most crucial element of a night out: conversation. My dinner or cocktail companion is my primary concern. If I didn’t want to talk, I’d eat alone and aimlessly scroll on my phone. If I can’t hear myself, let alone my dining partner, what’s the point? I know I’m not alone in this, so how and why is the average bar or restaurant so damn loud?

The level of bumping contemporary music at Vandell might have been frustrating to me, but to those inside the restaurant game, it’s a marker of success. 

In hospitality, silence is death. Music sets a mood, communicates a vision, and creates an atmosphere. Music choices in hospitality tell the customer what kind of place they’re in — “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne in a dive bar, a bit of Charlie Parker jazz in a more grown-up restaurant, Sabrina Carpenter for a trendy dining room on the cutting edge.

There’s also a practical reason why restaurants and bars turn the sound up. Farley Elliot, the Southern California Bureau Chief for SFGate and a renowned food reporter, explained to me that music is a means of drowning out the cacophony of the messy business of serving customers. “[Music] chips away at kitchen and bar clatter, road noise, and the loud talker in the corner,” he tells me. “Louder music forces people physically together, to hear, which furthers the atmosphere a place is trying to achieve.”

As someone who is often the loud talker in the corner, I empathize. I love to talk, but wouldn’t you rather hear the new Chappell Roan song instead of the stranger at the next table complaining about how loud it is? Perhaps it isn’t an either-or proposition. Is there an ideal decibel level for music in a restaurant or bar?

Sean Brock, chef and owner of West Hollywood restaurant Darling, has a very clear limit. Darling is the Nashville transplant Brock’s latest endeavor and music is a passion that runs through the space. He DJs in addition to cooking, and that love of old-school vinyl is evident throughout the establishment. It even has a listening lounge area that prioritizes music over chat, if that’s your inclination. In the regular dining area, though, Brock makes sure the DJs in his restaurant never exceed 80 decibels. 

The science on all this is pretty clear. Seventy decibels or lower is normal, the level we live at for most of our day. If you get up to 85 decibels, which is louder than the vibe at Darling, you shouldn’t be in that environment for more than eight hours without risking hearing damage. Fortunately, none of my meals last that long, unless I’ve stopped by a Shakey’s Pizza for the lunch buffet. At 100 decibels or higher, which is what you can get during the player introductions at a Lakers game, the longest you should be there is about 15 minutes or less. 

“We have decibel meters everywhere,” he mentions. “We have handheld ones, we have a big one, we have two big ones in the DJ booth. One of the other things that makes it really hard is DJs have spent their entire lives in front of gigantic speakers, so most of them are deaf!”

At Capri Club, Eagle Rock’s hip red-sauce-and-cocktails destination, owner Robert Fleming lucked into an ideal sound level for his spot. “When we first opened, we unintentionally had the music lower than a lot of bars and restaurants, mainly because the volume knob was hard to reach,” he says. “We got a lot of positive feedback from our customers that they were able to still have conversations and the music was at a good volume.”

On a recent evening at Capri, around happy hour, I took a decibel meter reading into the bar. The readings maxed out at 89.3 decibels, a bit over Sean Brock’s limit. But at no point did I strain to hear or carry on a chat with the bartender. Of course, the later it is, the louder it gets. “After 9 p.m. on the weekend? That’s a different story,” Fleming says. “As the crowds get rowdier the music tends to follow.”

Walt’s, the pinball bar down Eagle Rock Boulevard from Capri Club, has a far different vibe. The clang of pinball machines competes with the music, which is dictated by whichever bartender is working that hour. The decibels there topped out at 90 at 7 p.m., which was loud enough for me to need to raise my voice to order, but not unpleasant. Any louder and I might have started writing my thoughts on a piece of paper to communicate. 

At 90 decibels, that’s a two-hour limit, so if you’re worried about lingering too long, maybe skip dessert. Or, do what I do at Capri Club. Go sit outside on the patio. Not only will you not blow your eardrums out, you might even be able to have a decent chat with a friend. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Dave Schilling is a writer, humorist and filmmaker with bylines for the Guardian, the L.A. Times, the New Yorker, and New York Magazine amongst so many others that they won’t even fit in this long, run-on sentence biography.