South Australian app helps people find conversation-friendly restaurants

August 12, 2024 7:48 PM

South Australian app helps people find conversation-friendly restaurants. Have you ever struggled to hear a conversation over the din of a lively restaurant? For people with auditory processing issues or hearing loss, socialising in loud restaurants creates significant challenges — but an Adelaide audiologist hopes her app will help match people with acoustically-friendly venues.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (9 comments total)

Restaurant designer in an interview said people hate a loud restaurant, but they never come back to a quiet one. All the men in my family, my dad, me, my nephew, are enervated, overstimulated and restless after about a half hour in noisy restaurants. I've always wished that restaurant designers would get smarter about it, and design a ton of passive noise mitigation but then pipe ambient kitchen noise over speakers to make the loudness very even. Not too much, but not like being in a museum either. Dial back on the piped in noise as the conversational loudness ramps up.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:21 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]

This is so awesome. I can think of quite a few friends, just off the top of my head, who would love to have something like this in their city. One is a friend with hearing loss, but also others with a range of things like ADHD, auditory processing disorder, and autism-related sensory processing difficulties.

My partner and I are inattentive ADHD and autistic, respectively, and there's nothing we like more than to go to a café at odd hours when no one's there and have a nice, long, quiet conversation.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 10:36 PM on August 12 [2 favorites]

I've always wished that restaurant designers would get smarter about it . . .
I didn't finish Gastrophysics by Professor Charles Spence (including "Professor" there set the course for a tedious self-congratulatory tone) [review] but I did pick up that some scientists recognise that there's more to restaurant success than artful plating and extra salt. Heston Blumenthal has been happy to collaborate by insisting that customers pay £oad$ to eat in the dark, without cutlery, with headphones, their feet immersed in cold water. Eventually that sort of performative nonsense will filter down to regular restaurants as pay more attention to the soundscape.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:20 AM on August 13 [1 favorite]

I'd like that app for Philadelphia.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:52 AM on August 13 [2 favorites]

The app SoundPrint does this for iOS and Android, you can submit sound recordings yourself or browse the DB noise levels submitted by others. It's a great app, but they need more patrons to submit samples.

Noisy spaces may increase turnover, and there’s some evidence that they do encourage people to drink more and faster.
posted by Lanark at 3:27 AM on August 13 [4 favorites]

Much appreciated, I have a lot of hearing aid and cochlear users to forward this to
posted by irrediated at 3:57 AM on August 13

I'd like that app for anywhere.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:30 AM on August 13 [1 favorite]

I misunderstood 'conversation-friendly restaurants' on first read as 'restaurants where the patrons are so friendly they'll strike up a conversation'. Which, hell no. The actual thing, though, is something I really value as a person with auditory processing issues and a brain that just will not focus on the desired input when it could choose to amplify some irrelevant sensory distraction instead. Same issue visually with screens in public places, I can't not watch the bright shiny moving picture even if I desperately do not want to.
posted by terretu at 6:00 AM on August 13 [1 favorite]

I'd like that app for anywhere.

SoundPrint does seem to work for anywhere.
posted by Lanark at 6:11 AM on August 13