Restaurant Acoustics
Keep the atmosphere. Lose the overwhelming noise.
Consultant-designed acoustic panels that control reverberation, helping diners converse comfortably while preserving the energy of the room.
Restaurants | Cafés | Bars | Food Halls
Control noise without losing the atmosphere
Hard ceilings, glazing and exposed finishes reflect sound around a busy restaurant. As voices build, diners speak more loudly to compete, making conversation increasingly difficult. Songbird ceiling rafts, baffles and wall panels absorb these reflections, creating a more comfortable dining environment without making the room feel flat. Our acoustic consultants specify the right level of treatment to balance conversation, atmosphere and interior design.
What better acoustics can achieve in restaurants
Improved Conversation Clarity
Acoustic panels reduce excess noise and echo, allowing diners to enjoy clear conversations without raising their voices, creating a more enjoyable atmosphere.
Enhanced Comfort
By balancing sound levels, panels help control the build-up of reflected sound, creating a more comfortable environment as the restaurant becomes busy.
Better Dining Experience
A more balanced acoustic environment helps diners enjoy their food, company and surroundings without the room losing its atmosphere.
Staff Efficiency
Reduced noise distractions allow staff to communicate more effectively with each other and with patrons, helping staff hear colleagues and customers more clearly during busy service periods.
Aesthetic Appeal
Acoustic panels can be designed to complement your restaurant’s decor, adding a stylish element while serving a functional purpose.
Better Control as the Restaurant Fills
Controlling reverberation reduces the build-up of reflected sound as more diners arrive, helping conversation remain comfortable during busy periods.
Take a look at our projects
Acoustic panels for a busy board game café
Hospitality
Church Halls
What our clients say about us
Design, supply and install of acoustic panels for a mixed-use community hall.
“I just wanted to say thank you for everything you have done in terms of the acoustics at Kirkgate Community Centre, also Andy and his team were amazing. The place looks amazing.”
Nicole Williams – Kirkgate Community Centre
Supply and install acoustic panels for 5 Sports Halls.
“Thank you for the works provided over the summer period. It has been a seamless project and the new panels look great. “
Lauren Cassidy – Galliford Try
Design, supply and install acoustic panels for a multi-use school hall.
“We are very happy with the work and the difference is very noticeable.“
Anna Ellison – Weetwood School
Our Service from Start to Finish
Tell us about your space
Send us your floor plan or dimensions, photographs and a short video, and explain the acoustic problem.
Acoustic consultant review
Our acoustic consultants assess the layout, finishes and use of the space to determine what treatment is needed.
Treatment design & quotation
We recommend the right panels, quantities and locations, with a clear layout and quotation.
Supply and installation
Choose supply-only or nationwide installation, scheduled around your working hours where required.
Why choose Songbird for restaurants?
Consultant-led, not guesswork
We calculate the appropriate panel type, quantity and layout for your space.
Designed around your interior
Panels, rafts and baffles coordinated with your lighting, furniture and branding.
Supply-only or nationwide installation
Choose the service you need, with installation planned around working hours.
Clear, honest advice
We explain what acoustic panels will solve—and when source control, layout changes or sound insulation are also needed.
Ready for a better-sounding space?
Send us your room details and an acoustic consultant will recommend the appropriate panels, quantity and layout—with no obligation. Prefer to talk? Call 0113 322 7977 for expert advice.
What reverberation time should a restaurant have?
Aim for 0.75 seconds or less. That figure comes from DIN 18041:2016, the German room acoustics standard, which classes restaurants and canteens as quality class A4 and sets a volume-dependent reverberation target of 0.75 seconds or below. There is no UK standard covering dining spaces, so DIN 18041 is the usual reference point.
The standard is also clear about why a restaurant is not an office: the aim is not that everyone in the room can hear one speaker, but that a group of two to four people at one table can talk comfortably while the noise from every other table is attenuated. That is why the target for a restaurant is a band rather than a floor. A dining room treated to the point of deadness loses its atmosphere and starts carrying every conversation clearly to the next table. The right number within the band depends on what the room is for.
| Dining format | Target RT60 | What you are balancing |
|---|---|---|
| Fine dining, speech-focused | 0.6 to 0.7 s | Conversation across a table of four with no raised voices, and enough separation that neighbouring tables are not overheard |
| Casual and family dining | 0.7 to 0.9 s | Comfortable conversation with the room still sounding occupied and busy |
| Bar-led and deliberately lively | 0.9 to 1.1 s | Energy and buzz kept just below the point where the room amplifies itself |
Only the upper limit is anchored to a standard. DIN 18041:2016 sets 0.75 seconds or less for restaurants and canteens as a class, scaled by room volume. The three bands above are how that gets applied to different dining formats in practice, and they are design judgement rather than published figures. Treat them as the starting point for a conversation about the room rather than as a specification.
Why restaurants are harder to treat than they look. The constraints are commercial and regulatory before they are acoustic:
Hygiene drives hard surfaces. Wipeable walls, hard floors that survive spillage, tiled splashbacks and steel in the pass are all specified for cleaning and durability. Almost every surface a restaurant needs for operational reasons is acoustically reflective.
Open kitchens add a continuous source. An open pass puts extraction, plating and calling into the dining room as a permanent background, which raises the floor that diners are speaking over before a single customer sits down.
Converted units come with the wrong volume. Restaurants frequently occupy former retail or industrial spaces with high ceilings and large glazed frontages. The extra volume raises reverberation time for the same finishes, which is why a room can measure badly while looking beautiful.
Occupancy swings. A dining room absorbs noticeably more sound when full than when quarter full, so the room a designer signs off at a quiet walkthrough is not the room a diner experiences at 8pm.
What treatment changes. Doubling the absorption area in a room lowers the reverberant sound level by around 3 dB. In a measured restaurant, treatment brought the space from 87.6 dB(A) down to 82.6 dB(A). The result depends on the existing room and its use; absorption reduces reflected sound but does not silence individual sources.
How much to fit. Treat 40 to 60 percent of the ceiling area with Class A absorption, weighted towards the dining floor rather than the bar or the pass.
An untreated open plan floor with a plasterboard or exposed soffit ceiling will typically sit in the poor column, with speech still intelligible 10 metres or more from the talker. Getting to 5 metres is what the treatment below is for.
| Dining area | Approx. covers | Class A ceiling absorption at 40 to 60% | Equivalent 1200 × 1000 mm rafts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 m² | 50 | 32 to 48 m² | 27 to 40 |
| 150 m² | 90 | 60 to 90 m² | 50 to 75 |
| 300 m² | 180 | 120 to 180 m² | 100 to 150 |
| 500 m² | 300 | 200 to 300 m² | 167 to 250 |
Covers assume roughly 1.6 m² per seated diner, which suits casual dining. Fine dining runs closer to 2 m², so the same floor area carries fewer talkers and needs less absorption. Panels are Class A to BS EN ISO 11654 (αw ≥ 0.90).
Where the absorption goes, in order. Ceiling rafts and baffles above the dining floor first, because the ceiling is the only large surface not doing commercial work. Then the backs of banquettes and the upper wall zone above head height. Hard parallel walls in narrow dining rooms are worth treating even in small areas, because a long thin room flutters. Leave the bar deliberately livelier than the dining floor if the brief calls for it, which is an argument for zoning the treatment rather than spreading it evenly.
Four things to consider for restaurants
Protect the atmosphere
Set the brief around the dining format and comfortable table conversation.
Zone the treatment
Prioritise the dining floor and banquettes; bar areas may have a different acoustic brief.
Allow for hard finishes
Cleaning, durability and hygiene often rule out soft surfaces at low level.
Assess open kitchens
Extraction, plating and calling add a continuous source that may need separate control.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, and it is a real failure mode. Strip out enough reflected sound and the room loses its atmosphere, conversations at neighbouring tables become clearly audible, and diners report it as awkward rather than calm. This is why a restaurant target is a band, roughly 0.6 to 1.1 seconds depending on the format, rather than the lowest reverberation time achievable.
The required quantity depends on the restaurant’s volume, occupancy, finishes and desired atmosphere. As an initial guide, treatment may cover a substantial proportion of the ceiling above the dining area, but this should be calculated for the individual venue.
Yes. An open pass adds a continuous source of extraction, plating and calling that raises the level diners speak over before the room fills. The usual response is to weight absorption towards the pass end of the dining floor and, where possible, to break the direct line between the pass and the nearest tables. Treating the dining floor evenly under-serves the tables closest to the kitchen.
Panels can be made to order in a wide range of fabric colours, cut to non-standard shapes, and arranged as ceiling rafts that line through with lighting. In restaurants the ceiling is often where the acoustic treatment and the design intent meet, because it is the one plane with no commercial function competing for it.
Usually only in specific places. The ceiling does most of the work. Wall treatment earns its place in narrow dining rooms with long parallel walls, which flutter badly, and behind banquette seating where it is invisible. Wall area near tables is often taken up by glazing or feature finishes, so a small treated area in the right place beats a large one in the wrong place.
With the right specification. Panels close to preparation or serving areas need cleanable facings and appropriate fire performance for the setting. Ceiling rafts over the dining floor sit clear of food zones, which is one reason they are the default in restaurant schemes. Confirm the finish and fire class against the environment at specification stage.
Many restaurant installations can be completed overnight, on a closure day or in phases, depending on the quantity of treatment and the access equipment required. Most restaurant schemes are installed overnight or on a closure day, using mechanically fixed or bonded systems with no wet trades and minimal dust. Ceiling rafts need access equipment over the dining floor, so those are always fitted outside service. Larger schemes are usually phased so part of the room keeps trading.
No. Panels absorb sound inside the dining room. They do not block sound travelling through the ceiling slab, party wall or shopfront. Noise breakout is a sound insulation problem and often carries a licensing condition, so it needs measuring before anything is specified. NOVA Acoustics carries out UKAS-accredited sound insulation testing to identify the actual path.
Two peer-reviewed studies say yes. In the first, willingness to stay started falling above 51 dB(A) of background noise and willingness to spend above 52 dB(A), at roughly 2.2 and 1.7 percentage points per extra decibel. A follow-up found the effect on spend steeper among older diners, around 3.9 points per decibel. Both measured stated intentions in a laboratory rather than actual takings.
A bar can carry more, usually around 0.9 to 1.1 seconds, because energy is part of what people are there for. The risk is crossing the point where the room amplifies itself and staff start shouting orders. Where a bar and dining room share a space, the sensible approach is to zone the treatment rather than apply one target across the whole floor.
Shop the Songbird Acoustic Panel Range
Already know what you need? Explore our high-performance panels for direct UK delivery. If not, our acoustic consultants can recommend the right product, quantity and layout.
Sustainable, high performance acoustic treatment
Sustainable 40mm Polyester Fibre Acoustic Panel with Class A Sound Absorption made with >60% Recycled Material. Suitable for walls, ceilings, rafts or baffles.
Premium finishes and design-led interiors.
Simple, cost-effective self-installation.
40mm Fabric Wrapped Acoustic Panel with Class A Sound Absorption. Self-adhesive for easy DIY Installation. Suitable for surface mounting to walls or ceilings.
Durable protection for high-impact areas.
