Inc. All rights reserved. Or maybe not. On a Saturday evening at Green Papaya, glasses clink together and occasionally shatter. Doors creak open, allowing the sharp banter of pots and pans to spill from the kitchen.
Voices blend into a consistent buzz, pierced by a bit of laughter here and there.
Forks scrape, waiters call out, and music wafts above the din. Another Saturday night out in Dallas, another assault on the eardrums. Noise levels at restaurants cause more dissatisfaction among patrons than cost, service, cleanliness or even the size of portions, at least according to a National Restaurant Association survey. A publisher of restaurant guidebooks, Zagat, found that noise ranked second only to poor service in a list of problems cited by diners. Unfortunately for Schnyder and others like her, food service competes with sound systems, live music, open kitchens and the cacophony of noise building from every table in an establishment.