Music for Restaurants

Ray’s at Killer Creek

You’ve spent time and money choosing the perfect colors, the best tables, the most comfortable chairs. You’ve spent hours looking at light fixtures and adjusting their angle to get just the right effect. You’ve pored over every detail.  Don’t diminish all that effort by making careless music choices. John can help you bring that same level of attention and care to choosing just the right music.

The goal is to enhance the dining experience with music, not overwhelm it. A quick scan of Yelp reviews shows that one of the most common customer complaints about restaurants is that the music was too loud or too cheesy. There are many factors to consider: the acoustics of the room, the time of day, the type of restaurant, the restaurant’s clientele, the season.

At a quiet white tablecloth restaurant, the intimate and elegant sound of a solo classical guitar may set the right mood. Solo jazz guitar is another good choice for fine dining establishments. In louder or more spirited rooms an organ trio or a duo with jazz guitar and bass can be really nice. For rooms that have a lot of hard surfaces, and tend to already be kind of loud, you have to be very thoughtful about the timbre of the instruments you choose. Instruments with a warm tone, like guitar and bass, tend to work well in those environments because they can be heard without being overly distracting.

The time of day, and even the time of the evening, can affect how music is perceived. You may want to start the evening off with something low key and unobtrusive, like solo guitar, and then raise the intensity and volume in the later hours for diners who wish to stay for drinks. John can transition from background to entertainer by adding additional players for the later sets or by adding vocals.

Restaurant clients

JCT Kitchen
Ray’s On the Creek
Wathershed
Rosa Mexicano
Anthony’s
Horseradish Grill
The Old Vinings Inn
Ribs, Etc.