Latest / Restaurant Business with Fexingo: Food Service, Hospitality, and Independent Operators / How Restaurant Music Tempo Affects Per-Head Revenue
Transcript
- Lucas: If you run a restaurant and you've never thought about the beats per minute of your playlist, you might be leaving money on the table — literally. Luna: Beats per minute? You're about to tell me the tempo of the background music changes what people order? Lucas: Exactly that. There's a 2023 study out of Cornell — they looked at 18 casual-dining restaurant locations over six weeks. They toggled between two playlists: one at 120 beats per minute, which is roughly the tempo of contemporary pop, and one at 80 BPM, think classic bossa nova or slow jazz. Luna: And the difference in spending? I'm guessing the slower music won. Lucas: By a meaningful margin. Average per-head spend under the 120 BPM condition was about $38. Under 80 BPM, it jumped to $42.40 — that's an 11.7 percent lift. And here's the kicker: table turn time only increased by about five and a half percent. So the net effect on revenue per seat per night was positive by roughly six percent. Luna: That's a clean trade-off. You give up a little speed, but you gain a lot more check average. Lucas: Right. And the study dug into the mix, too. The slow tempo didn't just inflate every item evenly. Dessert orders went up 14 percent. Cocktails — especially after-dinner ones — rose 18 percent. The theory is that slower music subconsciously encourages people to elongate the experience, so they add that extra course or another round. Luna: I wonder about the flip side, though. If I'm a busy downtown spot trying to turn tables on a Friday night, 80 BPM might hurt me. Lucas: That's the nuance. The study was in casual dining where the average meal is about 45 minutes. For a fast-casual operation aiming for 20-minute visits, slower music would work against you. But even there, some operators have found a middle ground. Luna: What do they do? Segmented playlists by day part? Lucas: Exactly. A Chicago steakhouse I spoke with runs uptempo music during the 5:30 to 6:30 PM rush — speeds the bar to table transition. Then after 7 PM, they switch to a 75 BPM playlist. Their bar manager told me cocktail sales in the second half of the evening went up by roughly 20 percent after they made that change. Luna: That's smart. And it's essentially costless — just a playlist change in Spotify or whatever system they use. Lucas: Exactly. No kitchen reconfiguration, no menu redesign. But the effect does depend on the concept. A Seattle wine bar tried the same approach and saw a 15 percent lift in bottle sales, but their food covers actually dipped slightly. Regulars apparently wanted to talk more and eat less. Luna: So the music tempo interacts with the type of experience you're selling. For a wine bar, slower music might actually reduce food velocity. Lucas: Precisely. And here's another twist: the Cornell study also tracked tip percentages. They found that under slower music, tips as a percentage of the bill stayed flat — about 18.5 percent in both conditions. But because the bill was higher, the actual tip dollar amount increased. Servers walked out with more money. Luna: That's a nice alignment of incentives. The house makes more, the staff makes more, the guest is happy because they lingered. It's a win win win if you can manage the turn time. Lucas: One caveat: a fast-casual chain that tested this in three locations actually saw a drop in tips under slow music. They think it was because guests felt the staff was slower, which subtly annoyed them. So the context really matters. Luna: So for independent operators, what's the practical takeaway? Pick one day part, run a two-week test, measure check averages and turn times? Lucas: That's exactly what I'd recommend. Track it against the same day of the week the prior month. Control for holidays and local events. And use the same playlist length — about 90 minutes of music so it doesn't repeat too much and feel weird. Luna: I also wonder about the psychological mechanism. Is it purely tempo, or does the genre matter more? Lucas: The Cornell study tried to control for genre by using instrumental versions of similar styles — jazz for slow, pop for fast — but they acknowledged that genre and tempo are hard to untangle. A separate 2019 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that tempo alone accounted for about 70 percent of the spending effect, with genre contributing the rest. Luna: So tempo is the primary lever. That's helpful — you don't need to curate a perfect Spotify playlist, just a fast one and a slow one. Lucas: And a clear rule for when to switch. For most independent operators, shifting at 7 PM is a good starting point. But you can also go by guest count: once you hit 70 percent capacity, slow it down. The goal is to maximize the check of the guests you have, not necessarily to pack more in. Luna: Speaking of things that are small but make a real difference — and this is totally related to the idea of low-cost, high-impact levers — a couple of bucks a month from listeners is genuinely what keeps these episodes ad-free and independent. Lucas: Yeah, if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a tiny thing that adds up to a big difference for us. Luna: And we mean tiny — literally the price of a coffee. But it lets us keep digging into studies and talking to operators without any sponsor pressure. Lucas: Right. So back to the music: one thing we haven't touched on is the effect of no music at all. Some minimalist-concept restaurants go silent, but the data suggests that's actually worse than either tempo. A silent room makes people eat faster and leave, spending less. Luna: That makes sense. Silence creates an awkward pressure. At least with music, you're setting a rhythm. Lucas: Exactly. And the rhythm you choose — consciously or not — is steering your guests toward either a quick in-and-out or a lingering, higher-spend evening. The operator who picks the playlist with intention is the one who captures that extra six percent. Luna: So before you reprint your menu or renegotiate with your distributor, maybe just open Spotify and create a 'dinner service' playlist at 80 BPM. Lucas: And a 'happy hour' one at 120. Test it for two weeks. You might be surprised what a simple change in tempo can do for your bottom line.