Acousti-Board
Acoustic Panels & Ceiling Tiles for Restaurants
Nothing spoils a superb meal more than a raucous environment. No matter what cuisine you serve, most diners want a calm, relaxed setting to enjoy their meal. If they’re seated in a loud, chaotic restaurant, however, their entire dining experience could be ruined, and complaints and negative reviews may follow.
That’s why it’s essential to control sound in your eatery with restaurant acoustic panels. Acoustic panels can dampen excessive noise and provide the peaceful, pleasant eating environment your customers crave.
For today’s menu, we’re exploring why soundproofing is so essential for restaurants, highlighting the different kinds of acoustic panels suitable for culinary settings, and explaining how to install them for maximum restaurant soundproofing effect.
Why Soundproofing is Essential in Restaurants
From the calamity of the kitchen to the dull roar of diners’ conversations and the external hum of traffic and city sounds, plenty of noise sources affect restaurants. These issues can be difficult to control as well—especially if your dining room is open-concept and allows sound to travel, reverberate, and echo.
Unfortunately, all that noise can profoundly harm your diners’ experiences and perception of your restaurant. Researchers in Australia recently explored the relationship between loud ambient noise and people’s enjoyment of their food. To test diners’ reactions to different kinds of sounds, they used three noise sources in their experiment1:
- Traffic sounds
- Regular restaurant noise
- Calm, relaxing music
Unsurprisingly, the test subjects reacted negatively to the first two kinds of noise. At any decibel (dB) level, diners reported that traffic and restaurant noise detracted from their dining experience. And the feeling only got worse the louder the sounds became.1
Alternatively, diners did say relaxing music improved their perception of their meal—but only at low volumes. It had the most profound positive effect around 30 dB—or about the same level as a hushed whisper.1,2
Types of Acoustic Panels and Ceiling Tiles
Various acoustic ceiling panels for restaurants absorb echoes and create a more peaceful environment. Panels help reduce reverberating noise by blocking it from bouncing off hard surfaces (e.g., your ceiling), dampening its energy, and causing it to fade out before it builds up.
Acoustic ceiling tiles can be particularly useful to restaurants for several reasons:
- As mentioned, they help keep excessive noise down and make diners’ meals more enjoyable.
- They provide a unique aesthetic quality, unlike any other kind of ceiling material.
- Fire-resistant materials such as fiberglass used in their construction minimize concerns over placing them around gas burners, hot surfaces, and flammable items.
Regular acoustic panels can also significantly benefit restaurants by helping keep their noise problems in check. These dense, porous slabs are mounted to walls and other surfaces to absorb sounds traveling around a room. They’re essential for restaurants, as they can:
- Go up on the walls to reduce ambient noise
- Be placed between booths to isolate conversations and keep sound from building up
- Separate the cacophony of the food preparation area from the peace of the dining room
Installation and Maintenance of Acoustic Solutions
If the prospect of a mellow dining area entices you, but you’re nervous about installing soundproofing materials, don’t worry: putting up acoustic panels is as easy as boiling an egg.
Most acoustic panels take nothing more than a little adhesive to stick permanently in place. To get started:
- Measure the exact spot where you want to put your sound panel.
- Using Titebond Subfloor Adhesive, draw a line around the perimeter of the back of your acoustic ceiling tile and connect the corners in an X pattern—such as this ⌧.
- Use Contact Adhesive Spray to fill in the spots without Titebond Subfloor Adhesive.
- Wait four minutes.
- Mount the acoustic panel in the exact spot you’d like, applying pressure after it’s securely fastened to the wall—first to the edges to get the adhesive to stick, then in the middle.
- Repeat the process until you’re satisfied with the results, smoothing out the seams of any adjacent acoustical panels along the way.
If you want a visual rundown of the process, you can watch this video for assistance.
Many ceiling tiles can be installed similarly—in fact, some sound absorbing panels, such as the Sound Silencer series, are built for both wall and ceiling applications. If you already have an existing drop ceiling grid in place, installation is even easier: simply slip out your old tiles and slip in the new ones—job done!
Generally, sound absorbing panels don’t need much maintenance. In a restaurant environment, however, they may be susceptible to food and drink splashes among other sticky messes. To remove any errant spills, wipe them with a damp cloth or non-abrasive cleaner until you 86 the stains.
Case Studies of Successful Acoustic Implementations
Acoustic panels have fixed sound issues for countless restaurants across America. They’re equally at home in breweries as clubhouses and busy restaurants.
One boisterous brewhouse—referred to as an echo chamber by its owner—had huge issues with sound reverberation throughout the wide-open industrial space. To fix the problem, they installed a line of Echo Eliminator Wall and Ceiling Panels across the top of their walls. The echo immediately faded away, and in Larry’s words, “The place is much more pleasant – the echo chamber is now gone.”
Trust Acoustical Surfaces to Remedy Your Restaurant’s Sound Issues
Diners simply dislike noisy restaurant environments. Reducing the ambient noise level in your eatery provides your customers with exceptional dining experiences that turn walk-ins into regulars. Acoustic wall panels and ceiling panels are your best bet for eliminating echoes, isolating conversations, and minimizing sound through your dining area.
To learn more about restaurant acoustics, discover different kinds of acoustical panels, and get expert advice on soundproofing techniques, consult the professionals at Acoustical Surfaces. With over 35 years of industry experience, we’ve seen it all when it comes to soundproofing and other acoustic solution options—and we’re ready to put our knowledge to work to solve your sound issues.
Sources:
- Australian Broadcasting Company. Noisy restaurants leave a bad taste for diners, researchers recommend quiet spaces. https://www.abc.net.au/
- Centers for Disease Control. What Noises Cause Hearing Loss?. https://www.cdc.gov/
