Why Restaurant Noise Is Driving Down Per-Guest Spend

Restaurant Business with Fexingo: Food Service, Hospitality, and Independent Operators · Jun 20, 2026 · 10m · transcript

Episode 64 of Restaurant Business with Fexingo looks at a counterintuitive hospitality problem: how ambient noise in dining rooms directly reduces what guests order and how much they tip. Lucas and Luna break down a Cornell study that found per-person beverage revenue drops 8 percent for every 10-decibel increase above 70 dB. They explore why restaurants have gotten louder over the past decade — think open kitchens, hard surfaces, and deliberately 'energetic' design — and why operators are now investing in acoustic panels and noise-monitoring software as a profit play. The episode…