Restaurant Acoustic Treatment — Sacramento
Upscale dining, exposed ceilings, hard surfaces everywhere. The noise was driving customers away. We brought it under control without changing the design.
The Problem
A mid-range restaurant in midtown Sacramento had just completed a renovation. New polished concrete floors, exposed brick walls, open ceiling with painted ductwork and bar joists — the industrial-chic look that's popular in the farm-to-fork dining scene. It looked incredible. It sounded like a cafeteria.
Opening night, the owner realized there was a problem. At 70% capacity, the noise level made conversation difficult. At full capacity on a Friday night, diners had to lean across the table and raise their voices. The Yelp reviews started mentioning it: "Great food, but way too loud." "Can't hear your date." "Bring earplugs."
Every surface in the space was hard and reflective. Concrete floor, brick walls, plaster ceiling above exposed structure, glass windows. There was nothing absorbing sound. Every conversation, every plate clink, every kitchen sound bounced around the room and piled up into a wall of noise.
Our Approach
The owner didn't want to lose the open-ceiling aesthetic. No dropped ceiling. No covering the brick. The acoustic treatment had to be invisible or look like it belonged in the design. We proposed three treatments that would hit the major reflection surfaces without changing the restaurant's character.
Products Used
Ceiling: Wood baffles from 9Wood, installed in parallel rows running the length of the dining room. White oak, natural finish, 4" wide with 4" spacing. They hang 8 inches below the bar joists and absorb sound on both sides. The wood ties into the restaurant's farm-to-fork aesthetic — the owner said they look like they were always part of the design. We hung 32 baffles, each 12 feet long.
Walls: Felt wall panels in a warm charcoal color, installed on the back wall of the dining room and the wall adjacent to the bar. 1" thick recycled PET felt, NRC 0.40. Not the highest absorption, but on a wall that's mostly about catching first reflections, it does the job. We cut them into large rectangular panels that read as a design feature, not acoustic treatment.
Bar Area: Two acoustic clouds — horizontal panels suspended over the bar top. Armstrong Soundscape panels, 2'×4', NRC 0.85, wrapped in fabric that matches the restaurant's color palette. They float above the bar and absorb the concentrated noise from that area before it radiates into the dining room.
Challenges
Working in a restaurant means working around their schedule. We did all the installation during closed hours — 10 AM to 3 PM, Monday through Thursday. The restaurant opens at 4 PM for dinner, so we had to be cleaned up and out by 3:30 every day. All scaffolding broke down and stored in the back of house.
The exposed ceiling meant we were drilling into structural steel for the baffle hangers. Every connection point had to be field-verified — we couldn't just drill into a bar joist flange without confirming the steel gauge could handle the load. Our project lead walked the ceiling with the structural engineer's framing plan and marked every hanger point before we drilled a single hole.
The brick wall required tapcon anchors for the felt panels. Old brick can be unpredictable — some bricks drill clean, others crumble. We used a staggered anchor pattern so if one anchor failed, the panel was still supported by three others.
Results
The owner measured ambient noise on the next full-capacity Friday night using a sound level meter app. The peak noise level dropped from 82 dB to 73 dB. That's a big deal — 10 dB is perceived as roughly half as loud. Conversations at a normal voice were possible again at every table.
The Yelp reviews flipped. "Love the new wood ceiling features." "So much better — you can actually talk now." One reviewer specifically mentioned the acoustics as a reason to come back. The owner estimated that the acoustic treatment cost less than one month of the revenue they were losing from customers who wouldn't return because of the noise.
Key Takeaways
- Restaurant acoustics directly impact revenue — noisy restaurants lose repeat customers
- Wood baffles absorb sound while enhancing the design aesthetic
- You don't need to cover every surface — strategic placement on ceiling and key walls does the job
- Felt panels on brick walls catch first reflections and double as design elements
- A 9 dB reduction is transformative — the difference between "too loud" and "comfortable"