Noise reduction in a restaurant is a necessity for many establishments such as those belonging to the traditional catering sector (bistro, brewery), and also for cafeterias, fast food places, dining rooms in hotels, and collective restaurant rooms (canteens, university restaurants, staff canteen).
Because it is an aspect of the quality of such spaces that must not be neglected, in order to obtain for them a positive appreciation from their users: specific arrangements must be envisaged in terms of sound insulation in buildings.
It is true that in some cases, recurring visits to a restaurant (even noisy) is not necessarily linked to a particular craze, but to practical considerations (e.g. because of the respective locations on the one hand of the place of catering and on the other hand of the user for some of its activities, taking into account the means and time possible for transportation).
But noise is indeed an important criterion for qualifying the ambiance of a restaurant, and operators and managers of such establishments must ensure that it is reduced to acceptable levels: what is at stake is their image, and also the working conditions of their staff (with the links that this entails with the performance of the latter e.g. availability, quality of listening, no commission of errors or omissions in orders, sociability, affability).
It is during a period more or less prolonged that one is in a restaurant to take a meal (the noise does not encourage the consumption and deters sometimes to drag on ...), and it is thus desirable to be able to find there (also) conditions sufficiently favorable to relaxation and discussion.
In particular, to the intelligibility of speech, in relation to the control of reverberation phenomena (which contribute, in an enclosed space, to the increase of ambient sound levels, not only by causing their amplification, but also because each speaker increases the voice to be heard in a noisy environment) must be given a special attention; the discretion of the conversations is another important aspect to consider, in relation to which noise reduction is linked.
ITS took part in the noise reduction in a collective restaurant of a leisure center in the Clermont-Ferrand area (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region) by selling high-performing sound-absorbent panels (the sound absorption coefficient of their filling reaches 100% in the 1/1 octave frequency bands of center frequency 500 H to 2000 Hz which illustrates that they are as efficient as possible at frequencies corresponding to human speech).
Installed to separate groups of tables, such soundproofing equipment has helped to limit the persistence over time of the sounds (characterized by a parameter called reverberation time, thus opportunely reduced) by allowing an increase in the equivalent absorption area of the room. They also made it possible to oppose the propagation of noise from one side towards the other side of the separation they formed (characterized by a parameter called spatial noise decay, thus opportunely increased).
The noise reduction in this restaurant allowed an improvement of its ambiance: not only soundscape, but also visual because the installed high-performing sound-absorbent panels were selected with a filling whose hues were more shimmering ones than the others, in harmony with the rest decoration, which they have subtly enhanced (as a spice for a dish, when well chosen and well dosed which is not a totally inappropriate comment in the context of a restaurant).