Dining in Peaceful Serenity

"Restaurants have definitely gotten louder if you look at long-term trends."

"I noticed I was having a little bit of anxiety [in New York, finding quieter spots to eat], because you'd show up at a plqce, never met the person and then, the place is a lot louder than you thought it was going to be if you looked it up on Yelp, Google, OpenTable, whatever resource you use."

"And all of a sudden, you're sitting there and I'm only able to really follow half of what they say, at most. It's like you hear words and  you have to put it in a puzzle."

"But it's just very anxiety-producing. It makes it hard to connect with somebody. You're not relaxed."

"Noise stresses the body. It's also a public health issue. It's not just hearing health."

Gregory Scott, founder, SoundPrint, app for noise detection

Once a place for conversation, restaurants have gotten noisier, in part, due to architecture and design trends, says Gregory Scott, founder of SoundPrint. Photo by Getty Images

The SoundPrint app is designed with a built-in, crowd-sourcing decibel meter. Measurements during peak dining times on the busiest days of the week have determined that four of ten restaurants in Canada are loud enough that repeated exposure has the potential to impair hearing. An estimated three out of ten restaurants are considered to be less noisy to the extent that conversations are possible between table-mates.

 

 81 decibels or higher falls into the "very loud" category with the potential to cause hearing loss linked to prolonged exposure.

When the sound ambience at a restaurant reaches 87 decibels, comparable sound is that of a blender, while at 83 decibels the sound is like standing 30 metres from a diesel train travelling at 72 kilometres an hour. Time spent in these places of constantly loud sound threatens the well-being of dining guests and far more so for employees of restaurants exposed to noise for extended periods of time.

The founder of SoundPrint launched his app in New York in April of 2018. It was quickly taken up by the hearing health community, expanding from restaurants use to bars, cafes and tea shops, retailers, arenas, gyms, parks, libraries along with other similar venues. Then other communities; those with sensory disorders like autism, blindness and low vision, as well as people with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorders began using the app.

"We all have ears. You know something's loud. You can just feel it. But there was no tool to really help 

unite everyone"

"To be like, 'Look, this is an issue'. And so, all of a sudden, all the data started coming in, and we were just sitting on something different. Nobody had the data."

Gregory Scott, founder, SoundPrint

Finally, the mainstream population began getting in touch, wanting to find quiet places where they wouldn't have to shout to be heard. Although helping people find quiet places remains the app's focus, it has taken on additional purposes. Now it has become a source of evidence-based data indicating precisely how loud or quiet venues are, and by extension, how loud or quiet cities are. A noise complaint feature has been added, to indicate whether a user would like SoundPrint to contact the venue. 

 

 

A system to connect venue managers with acoustic consultants is being developed, to determine whether assistance bringing the sound volume down would be useful. Close to 2.5 billion people are expected to suffer hearing loss by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO recommends that people avoid exposure to sounds louder than 70 decibels over a 24-hour period, to prevent noise-induced hearing loss.

 

A 2018 study published in the Open Journal of Social Sciences showed sleep can be affected by loud sound and contribute to exhaustion. The difficulty of carrying on a conversation in loud settings for people with hearing loss can lead to increased isolation. People in over 50 countries now use SoundPrint. The largest number of submissions come from the United States, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

 While New York City registers an average of 77.8 decibels and Miami 78.2 decibels, Canadian cities tend to average 78.8 decibels. Over time, restaurants have transitioned from being a place for quiet conversations to the present where they are noisier in part, due to architecture and design trends. Communal, or tightly spaced tables, hardwood floors and open kitchens all contribute to the cacophony. Quieter places typically have carpeting on the floor, upholstery on the chairs, tablecloths, well-spaced tables, nooks and side rooms. Panelling, plants, drapery all absorb sound.

The dining room at Hy’s Steakhouse in Toronto, which SoundPrint has ranked as having a “moderate” noise level and has been nominated for the app’s Quiet List. Photo by Hy's Steakhouse & Cocktail Bar

The Devastation of Cafe Culture

"It will be a slow and staged comeback for us as a lot of the offices in London are not coming back on until after summer, and some may even open only next year."
"If you feel like having a cappuccino, ordering it online doesn't really work as coffee is all about the social aspect."
Robert Robinson, Notes coffee-shop chain, London

"Manhattan traffic is still very light. The Hamptons is very busy."
"It makes sense for us. It's where many of our customers go."
Max Crowley, Bandit coffee shops, Midtown, Chelsea, New York

"We believe that consumers will move down price points, and turn more to cheaper, instant coffee, as they tighten their belts amidst the gloomy economic outlook."
"Consumers will continue to embrace home brew and instant coffee, both because they will still avoid heading out to cafes, and also because it is generally a cheaper alternative."
Taohai Lin, consumer and retail analyst, Fitch Solutions

Coffee drinkers. Photographer: Yorgos Karahalis/Bloomberg

Yet another victim falling prey to the dread SARS-CoV-2 virus. In a sense, not surprising. After all, the popularity of coffee houses, cafes and specialty coffee shops, just like restaurants and hotels and fast-food takeouts all got hit in a similar manner. With the initial wave of COVID-19 and the response mandating closure of all commercial enterprises where people tend to gather, why not coffee? Of course coffee's wake-up role could be redeemed by home brewing. After all, that's what people did before the sweep of the social/commercial coffee industry.


And while home brewing made sense during lockdown, since people were at home anyway and they had to feed themselves once they were satisfied they had acquired enough toilet paper for comfort of mind and body, producing home brewed coffee should have been a natural. It was, but it seems that hasn't rescued coffee; consumption has been down, worldwide. The wallop of caffeine was there, but somehow it just wasn't the same; the 'scene' was missing, the social aspect, the sang-froide.

Cafe culture simply cannot be successfully emulated in a home setting. That's it, in a nutshell. The U.S.Department of Agriculture has seen the writing on the wall, noting global coffee consumption set to fall. Yes, there's been a surge at grocery stores selling the beans for panic-pantry stuffing, but the shutdown of cafes and restaurants, typically accounting for roughly 25 percent of demand, was overwhelmed by under-demand.



Marex Spectron research has estimated that over 95 percent of the out-of-home market shut down at some point during the pandemic. And despite the gradual opening prefacing the second wave of COVID, consumers have held back, hesitant to go out in droves despite the reopening of economies. Morning commuters and afternoon breakers supported area coffee shops and they've been hard hit. During the pandemic Dunkin' Brands Group Inc. lost its breakfast crowd.

A format featuring "pickup" stores sans tables and chairs sees Starbucks Corp. retooling its model --  a stark departure from the ambiance that made its cafes such an appealingly popular hangout. An estimated 125 million people globally work on coffee crops for their livelihood; with a hobbled recovery for coffee demand presenting a troubling picture for a quick recovery. The future for Arabica beans could see a 10 percent descent in the second half of the year to about US90 cents a pound, according to Citigroup.

The International Coffee Organization warns of a prospect of child labour proliferating in areas of production in lock-step with poverty hitting local farmers. The fastest growing market for coffee is Asia where consumption at restaurants and cafes is expected to recover, as countries emerge from lockdowns. In Brazil, one of the country's largest cafe chains, Suplicy Cafes Especials was unable to pay farmers for cargoes already delivered. "Some of our franchising partners already warned us that they will close", the company's CEO Filipe Braga warned.

The Starbucks logo  downtown Chicago. (AP/Gene J. Puskar, )

McDonald's Corp. warns if a second wave hits, it could stop reopening plans of all dine-in services in its U.S. restaurants, while Starbucks is operating about 95 percent of its U.S. stores, even while sales were down 43 percent in May.

In London, robusta futures are down 13 percent, while Arabica beans slumped 25 percent in New York.

Dalgona coffee, anyone?