When used correctly, restaurant music can help reinforce your brand identity and recall, enhance the customer dining experience, and even help increase sales

During the dessert presentation at three-Michelin star restaurant Alinea in Chicago, lights get turned down and the synths of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” start blasting. Annie Lennox’s vocals start: Sweet dreams are made of these / Who am I to disagree?

A diner named AnneC left a review of their experience on Tripadvisor: “I can never hear this Eurythmics song without thinking of Alinea’s dessert presentation again.”

Music can be a powerful tool for restaurateurs the same way interior design is wielded to create the right ambience for a restaurant. When used correctly, it can help reinforce your brand identity and recall, enhance the customer dining experience, and even help increase sales. Of course, when background music is used improperly, it can also have adverse effects. How many times have you dined at a restaurant and just felt that the music playing in the background just didn’t fit the experience? Or was the music playing way too loud that you couldn’t have a proper conversation with those at your table?

“When I don’t like the music, for me, it reflects on the taste of the restaurant owner and I quickly get turned off. Personally I’m not into music being played at restaurants because if the music is bad, it tends to affect my mood,” says CEO and master franchise owner of Pepper Lunch in the Philippines and part-time DJ Cecile Zamora

CEO and master franchise owner of Pepper Lunch in the Philippines and part-time DJ Cecile Zamora is so fastidious with her music preferences that she’d rather have none playing. “When I don’t like the music, for me, it reflects on the taste of the restaurant owner and I quickly get turned off. Personally I’m not into music being played at restaurants because if the music is bad, it tends to affect my mood. If I were to create a playlist, I would probably ask someone whose taste I trust like Melvin Mojica or Kix Suarez.”

Background music should definitely be just that—laying in the background and almost unnoticeable. For food writer JJ Yulo, there is a sweet spot for background music in restaurants. “The music’s volume should be low enough that I can still talk to you. You can hear me. I don’t have to raise my voice or anything. At the same time, I can hear the music enough to bob my head to it. I can say ‘Oh, I like this song.’”

According to a study done in Stockholm, a playlist with a variety of both popular and obscure artists that reflect your brand values increased sales by 9.1 percent. Another study found that restaurants that brand fit music from popular and lesser-known artists saw an increase of 4.3 percent in sales over silence. To see the same results in your own restaurant, this means you can’t just play random songs on Spotify. Use music as a tool to tell the story of your brand and food.

For food writer JJ Yulo, there is a sweet spot for background music in restaurants. “The music’s volume should be low enough that I can still talk to you. You can hear me. I don’t have to raise my voice or anything. At the same time, I can hear the music enough to bob my head to it. I can say ‘Oh, I like this song’”

Our auditory senses contribute greatly to our memories, which is one reason why movies capitalize greatly on soundtracks and why hearing Christmas songs complete the season’s spirit. Cyrus Cruz, managing director of The Food Agency, helps create restaurant concepts all the way down to the music playlist it plays during service.

“Music plays a vital role in ambiance. Most don’t notice the music, but music subconsciously dictates how you feel and controls the tempo and mood of your dining experience,” he says. “When music is done right, it becomes deeply ingrained in your memory and every time you hear the song again, it has the power to transport you back to that dining experience.”

A study done in 2018 had 60 participants eat two identical cookies. One cookie they ate in an environment that was playing “pleasant” music and the other cookie they ate in an environment playing “unpleasant” music. The cookie the participants ate with the “pleasant” music playing was rated higher and as better tasting than the other, proving that music can help in elevating the experience of diners and their perception of the food they’re tasting.

Music can also help a restaurant serve more customers. An Israeli study found that “fast-tempo music can be used to increase a restaurant’s efficiency and profitability. Thus, if a restaurant is crowded, fast-tempo background music can be used to increase the turnover of tables, making tables available for new diners more promptly and increasing income.”

“When music is done right, it becomes deeply ingrained in your memory and every time you hear the song again, it has the power to transport you back to that dining experience,” says Cyrus Cruz, managing director of The Food Agency

For some, music helps to complete the restaurant experience. Architect Carlo Calma of Asador Alfonso went to great lengths to customize background sounds in the restrooms. “We used Arvin Nogueras to create an immersive background sound experience. The brief was to mix and create a hybrid of farm animal sounds and lounge music funk,” Calma says. The restaurant sits on a 12-hectare chunk of farmland in Cavite and so he thought that agricultural sounds would help tie in the dining experience with the locational context.

Qui Pan Asia Brasserie in New Manila uses music to set the vibe of the place at a certain time of the day. “Qui Pan Asia Brasserie serves Pan-Asian cuisine with an Art Deco-inspired interior. The music anchor was jazz,” says Cruz, whose agency helped bring to life the restaurant’s brand.

“We have over nine playlists for the restaurant to help match different moods. Jazz but not the old, sleepy, elevator music type of jazz. It’s more dynamic. Of course we have jazz classics like Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Harman alongside hip-hop infused jazz like Mos Def, Aloe Blacc and Nas. We also have a playlist or pop hits reimagined in a jazzy way, similar to our food and how it’s creatively reimagined.”

All of these studies point to the fact that background music in restaurants can help enrich the brand experience. Choose music that will communicate your restaurant’s personality and voice but it shouldn’t be the main attraction. After all, all diners want to do in a restaurant is to eat good food, have a good time, and hear what their companions are saying.