The most common complaint I hear from my patients is their difficulty hearing in noisy restaurants. "How can I enjoy friends/family if I can’t hear them in all the noise?"
There’s really two issues: the annoyance factor of high noise levels and the barrier to social communication. Noise is the second most common complaint of diners (second only to poor service). For the hard-of-hearing, noise overpowers and adds distortion to conversation. Hearing-impaired diners are looking for a quieter option when dining out, so that they may enjoy the social aspect of eating out. I am compiling a list of favorable restaurants for the hard-of-hearing. Let me know what local restaurants you hear better in – and post comments about a positive restaurant hearing experience. (Let the food critics rate the food – we will rate the noisy intrusion!) Spread the word and tell your friends so that we can develop a source of restaurants for (relatively) quiet dining when we want to eat out for pleasure – or to celebrate an occasion with friends and family!
We went to Saladelia in Durham to eat before going to the DPAC and they had a band in the main area so we had to move to the second room to eat and talk. After we moved, we could have a nice conversation.
Good food too! It was nice to have another room to go to if you didn’t want to hear the band.
Chili’s was very noisy. Hard to talk to my friend and we were in a booth. After a while you give up saying “What?” all the time and just fake it!
My daughter and I went out for dinner at the Outback in Durham. We were seated near the bar which was very noisy. We had to request to be moved to another table because of the noise. They moved us to a booth away from the bar – which was less noisy. We were able to have a conversation, but at times the noise became intrusive and annoying. I think the booth helped block out some of the noise. At least we were able to talk without having to repeat too much! Just make sure you don’t sit at the tables near the bar!
Panera Bread’s must be okay, since I’ve gone to a number of Meetups there and never struggled to keep up. If I’m somewhere where it’s really noisy I’ll notice I’m not hearing everything that everyone else seems to be hearing.