If you’ve been dining out in the Bay Area and had a little trouble hearing your partner over the background noise, it’s not you—a recent survey found that San Francisco-area restaurants are amont the country’s noisiest, on a par with those of Manhattan.
The study, done by a company called SoundPrint, together with two area speech and hearing clinics, combined data from an intensive week of dining at 100 restaurants and SoundPrint’s existing list and found that the average restaurant noise level was 78 dBA, too loud for conversation, and that a large number were over 80 dBA, a level that can cause hearing problems for employees who work there.
But hear this! There’s help for diners; SoundPrint’s app includes information on over 700 area restaurants, including a San Francisco Quiet List of restaurants where you can hear yourself think—and eat. It’s at https://www.soundprint.co
There’s an app version, too, but so far it’s only for Apple devices.
