Restaurant Upgrades 101: Music and Amenities

Most restaurant owners know that the music in your establishment has a tremendous impact on its atmosphere. Whenever you visit a restaurant, you’re likely to hear faint music, murmuring white noise and other ambient sounds to cover the clanging of plates and flatware.      

Background music is great for covering kitchen sounds in a restaurant, but it’s also proven to boost moods and improve customers’ behaviors. According to RestoBiz, a restaurant and food service news company, “From slow jazz to trendy pop, music plays a central role in creating a restaurant that customers want to return to and recommend to others.” 

Benefits of Music in Your Restaurant

Attentive service and engaging décor are important, but sound has the power to evoke ambience and improve profit margins because customers will likely stay longer, return at some other time and recommend your establishment to others.  

Patrons Finish Meals Faster

People tend to chew their food three times faster when listening to high-volume, fast-tempo music. This also relates to beverage consumption. In one French study, researchers observed that with each increase in decibel level, men not only consumed more drinks but also finished each drink in less time. 

Restaurants see faster turnover when patrons finish their food and drinks in a shorter time. This ultimately increases the number of customers served at a restaurant and, as a result, grows revenue. 

Food Tastes Better

A study published by the Journal of Culinary Science & Technology determined food tastes best to diners when two factors occur:

• Classical music is played softly
• There’s subtle background chatter 

The same study revealed that the absence of music detracted from a patron’s dining experience, with participants describing even the “clink” of cutlery as unacceptably noisy. Music helps mask such noise.

Food and Beverage Spending Increases

In another study, restaurant diners increased their expenditures by 23% when slow-tempo music played. Any additional spending that wasn’t on food went toward a drink bill, which grew by 51%. Because drinks are a high-margin item, this profit increase is especially significant for restaurant owners. 

This change in spending behavior from music inevitably leads to a substantial sales increase, a generally more pleasant experience for patrons and greater success for your company. 

Benefits of Amenities in Your Restaurant

Music isn’t the only factor that affects the ambience of your restaurant or bar. Consider paying attention to several other ambient elements to run a more successful business. 

Lighting, climate control, wayfinding and digital signage, and décor are all important elements when improving the experience and retention of hungry customers. Incorporating centrally controlled, automated smart systems into your restaurant results in happier customers and a more successful business.

AV Smart Solutions offers automated smart systems and modern service solutions to elevate your business’s design and function. We specialize in the installation and implementation of technologies that improve your customers’ experience. 

Restaurant Amenities From AV Smart Solutions 

Smart systems from AV Smart Solutions boost the capabilities of your amenities. Our systems are programmable to automatically lower or close the blinds, dim or turn off lights, adjust temperature, and change or adjust the volume of music — all at the same time. 

For example, you can program your motorized window treatments to lower the blinds 30 minutes before sunset. You can even keep them shut until the doors open for lunch, which saves money on your electricity bill. 

What about letting your guests know when happy hour starts by automatically changing the lights and music on a schedule? Our smart systems can do that, too. 

Our Cloud Cover system is an especially useful asset for restaurants and other hospitality businesses. It’s primarily an ambient music and sound system, but you can also add your own audio messages in between songs, similar to a radio ad. This gives you the opportunity to tell guests about menu updates or upcoming promotions, such as a trivia night. 

Cloud Cover is centrally controlled, so it’s particularly useful for franchise restaurants. You can control all your franchise locations from one specific location when equipped with our system. For example, you can play the same soundtrack at all your locations with the tap of a finger.

Contact AV Smart Solutions to Upgrade Your Restaurant Music and Amenities

At AV Smart Solutions, we pride ourselves on creating seamless, scalable and long-term solutions that save you time and money. Our goal is to make your life easier as a restaurant owner or manager by taking tedious tasks off your plate so you have more time to focus on what matters most — your customers! 

Contact us today if you’re ready to make music and amenity upgrades to your restaurant. Call (425) 655-5052 or complete our contact form.