Exactly.
Part of this can be blamed on the design of the restaurant. The employees working in the back and the kitchen are in a much noisier environment than the comparatively quiet booths & tables out front, so they need the music turned up to be able to hear it. But then it is just blasting out in the dining area. I’ve frequently been in restaurants where they were playing music that I actually liked, but it was just too loud for dining.
Also, diners are usually in groups, and want to talk to each other, so they want the music to be quiet, background music. But the employees are working, often at pretty boring jobs, they want the music loud as a distraction from their tasks.
A smart restaurant owner would have 2 completely separate music circuits, one for the public dining area and one for the back rooms & kitchens.
Yes. My former boss listened to the adult contemporary station, and I had to hear it because I was in the next office. Every freaking day, I’d hear Maroon 5’s “She willllllll…be lovvvved…She willllllll…be lovvvved…”, sung in the highest possible pitch that’s still audible to humans.
And Nickelback?
I am right on board with this answer. Having known servers intimately, the Sunday after church crowd is the absolute worst. Often they consider their preaching their tip. Apparently it isn’t uncommon to average 30-40 percent less tips than other days.
So yes, they are going to blast the music they want because they are going thru the motions to get the heck out of there as soon as possible. Getting the older crowd out because they don’t like it would be a bonus.
Unless there is a babysitter there insisting they kiss wrinkley butt, I can’t say things will change any time soon.
As part of the Sunday extremely-hung-over crowd, back in the day, I can assure you I did my part to make up for the churchgoers (ie., not substituting everything and tipping really well).
Or that crowd tips less as they are being treated rudely. It’s more likely a nasty circle.
Heh. Near where I used to live was a McDonald’s which the local teenagers used as a hangout. While spending little to no money there, they occupied all the outdoor seating and made the place inhospitable to families and other would-be customers by being generally obnoxious and foul-mouthed. The McDonald’s found that playing classical music outside drove the punks away very efficiently.
Believe me, as a former server, no matter how nice you are to the after church senior crowd, the tips don’t exist.
You could bring them infinite refills on the hot water for their one tea bag, and remember their usual order of one egg poached and multigrain toast with the butter on the side, and even cover the 50 cents they were short on an order last week, and you still will only get the nickles & dimes from their change purses, a few religious tracts, and a couple of them trying to swindle you into joining Amway or another of their MLM schemes. And they will be at the table as long as humanly possible, so when you could be filling up with the hungover crowd which buys full size breakfasts and orange juice does tip, every table has blue hairs with the smallest possible order still nursing their 3 hour old tea bag.
I worked in a hotel restaurant for years which had the after church crowd as the Sunday clientele, and although many were nice people, and I liked quite a few of the regulars, working a Saturday breakfast was FAR more lucrative for tips, as well as for the final cash intake for the restaurant. If I ever was to open a breakfast place, for the sake of profits, I would not cater to the seniors solely due to the lack of profits.
Central Station of the Dutch provincial town of Heerlen is known far and wide for the large crowds of drugaddicts and bums haunting the station. Nothing worked to chase these people away, or at least preventing them from taking over the station. The only, and only solution that actually worked, was playing non stop soft classical music.
I kid you not.
Look at this photograph
Everytime I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is on Joey’s head
… “Playing all your glurgy goodness, 109.3 KGAG”
Back in Cincinnati, I lived near a UDF that played classical on their outside speakers. Apparently, did a pretty good job at keeping people from hanging out in front of their store.
Yep, as mentioned, “Photograph”, ad nauseum.
One of the most amusing things about Western dining restaurants in Korea is that the staff usually doesn’t realize (or possibly care) what the English songs are saying. I’ve been in all manner of family restaurants in Seoul with T-Pain singing “Cyclone” or other sexually charged rap/hiphop songs in the background.
Catchy song, but I doubt the raunchy lyrics about sex are appropriate to a Bennigan’s. Korea’s the only place where I’ve heard the word “fuck” sung over store, restaurant, and even mall PA systems.
Thats my first thought aswell.
For a hilarious example of this, see this Youtube vid from a Dutch commercial. NSFW language, obviously :).
I am officially reserving a place for you in the new regime.
Maybe Eleanorigby can use this tip to get her son to clean his room. Non-stop Bach for you until the room is clean!
I’m not proud of this, but back when I was 15 or 16, I was with some friends at a pizza place, and we found a Barney and Friends cd in the jukebox. We queued up the whole album to play, then left as soon as it started.
Ok, I’m a little bit proud.
Well, if enough people vote with their wallets, places like that will go out of business. Or be bailed out.