I went to a chain restaurant a few years ago which had its “own” channel (basically commercials about their menus interspersed with news snippets). It was too loud also. When we asked the manager to turn it down she told us the volume was preset by corporate and she had no control over it.
I’ve reflected on that incident for years now, as I drive past to eat at their competitor.
Foam ear plugs are dead cheap, easily available, incredibly easy to carry in a pocket, and a lifesaver at such times. You can hear through them, so can still converse etc. But your ears won’t bleed from the volumes you encounter.
In a world where you cannot turn down offensively loud music etc, in places you MUST wait, such as doctors and airports, I find them indispensable. Don’t leave home without them, they make life SO much better. Less noise, less stress, no more worries!
I think you’re intentionally keeping the place vague, but where did you go?
From all accounts it looked like you at at a sports bar.
Don’t you kinda know walking into the place that a sports bar showing a big college football game is going to have the volume way up? Didn’t your friends know it would be that way?
Now that I’m retired, my wife and I go to the movies every so often. The previews shown are always blasted to 11, and it’s downright painful.
I now take my noise-cancelling headphones and wear them for the previews. Then when the movie starts, off they come and into my wife’s purse.
A sports bar is one thing, but I definitely object to TVs becoming ubiquitous in public spaces where they really don’t belong.
I spend a lot of time in airports and other public spaces, and it seems to me that the prevalence of
TVs is increasing. What’s worse is that various businesses seem to really want them on even when people complain about them. I was in a hotel “executive lounge” recently having a drink with a friend and there’s a TV playing rather loudly. I get up, find the remote and mute it. A while later the attendant shows up and looks at the TV with puzzlement. He finds the remote and turns the volume back up. I politely told him that I turned it down intentionally so my friend and I could talk. He says, “I’m supposed to keep it turned up.”
I reply, “My friend and I can’t hear each other speak across this little table. Please mute it again.”
“Sorry, I really can’t. It’s for the guests.”
I pointed out that my friend and I WERE THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE LOUNGE! Never mind the fact that WE are guests, and we want the fucking thing turned down!
Nope, corporate wants the volume up.
So lately I’ve become a lot less polite about this stuff. I’ll turn a TV off, mute it, complain to the business. I’m thinking of buying one of those universal remotes that just turns off TVs. This stuff has become so obnoxious I see no alternative.
Lumberjack’s, or something like that? Ate in one once, once for exactly the same reason. The volume wasn’t bad but I don’t need corporate tripe pouring out at me while I try to eat.
Chili’s (and some other chains) have those electronic billboards on the tables so you can pay to play games or be mesmerized by the rotating screens. I understand you can by your check there too, which eliminates the annoyance by the waitstaff. Except it doesn’t.
It’s much more annoying than the waitstaff, and you can’t turn it off, either, only turn it around away from you.
I expect noise and televisions in a sports bar, which is why I avoid them as much as possible. Nothing against sports, just not into watching it on tv.
When my favorite little neighborhood Italian place was taken over by the son of the retiring owners, he added televisions and set them on blast. Because HE likes sports.
He kept the same cooks and menu. His business has dwindled to the point that it’s noticeable when there are actual cars in the parking lot. He’s barely keeping the doors open, but insists it has nothing to do with the loud televisions.
I don’t understand why people go out to bars/restaurants to watch TV or text on their cell phones?
They can do that at home.
I always thought you went out to meet other people and TALK with them?
Note if you go to visit these same people in their homes, they will have the TV on full blast as well. I think it is rude to have the TV on if you have visitors. (Or to sit there texting.)
If you’re the guests (assuming they’re buying) then you grin and bear it and never go back to that restaurant again. All IMHO of course. However, I have to admit any restaurant with a more sports bar atmosphere I’ve been to have the volume down as there’s all kinds of games on that would otherwise have competing play by plays.
dennys does this now actually for about 4 or so years …
Was it Buffalo Wild Wings? We went to one of those once. There were about 30 TVs, each with a different game on, each with the volume turned all the way up. Absolutely torturous. I’ll never go in one again.
Pretty much the poster child for “we’re so deafening and distracting we must be a whole lotta goddamn fun!”
And their wings are meh at best.
Way back in the day I used to go to a certain bar with coworkers on a regular basis. The bartenders were very nice, and often turned the channel as we requested. However they were under orders to keep volumes up.
Then one day during a more lucid moment I noticed they used the same cable tv remote that I had at home. After that I often packed my own remote to the bar and would slowly lower the volume over time to a more reasonable level, still loud but better. Most times they never even noticed enough to turn it back up.
Fun times.
Exactly. With all the TVs, it seems like it was a sports bar. In which case, having the volume of the announcing up (esp for the local team) is a feature.
Well the watching TV is easy. Some people don’t have the specific channels that the game is on (esp if one has “cut the cord”). Secondly, there actually are quite a few avenues for conversation with others around the bar, focusing on that game. I’ve actually made quite a few very good friends by starting a conversation with them (or they starting it with me) at the bar watching a game.
Reminds me of pumping gas at Sheetz, they have speakers blaring music at all the pumps. Sometimes it’s music I like, sometimes not. I vote with my wallet and just go to the local, less crowded places.
Shoulda just changed the channel to something worth watching, like Spongebob (and then reversed the batteries in the remote).
Most of the restaurants I go to have the TV sound off anymore. Sometimes they have the captions on, usually not.
The restaurant I ate at tonight, wow, I’ve never seen so many TV’s in one place, not even in a store that sells TV’s. The walls were covered in them all the way around, there were rows of big (50"-60" or so) TV’s surrounding the top of the bar, facing both inward and outward, and every booth in the place also had a smaller TV (20", maybe, WITH a remote for whatever satellite service they were connected to) as well. But we sat at a table, so we didn’t get our own personal TV. 
Sorry, should’ve included the name. It was a roast-beef sandwich chain called “Arby’s”. I don’t know how many states they’re in, but there are a lot of them here in Texas.