When the conversations of regulars, the clatter of plates, and the shuffle of wait staff seem like too much, all that can break through is a curated selection of in-venue music.
Music in restaurants is more than just background noise. It’s a powerful way to curate the ultimate dining experience in your restaurant. The influence of music has been researched extensively, and you may be surprised to find what it can do for your establishment.
Why is your restaurant's music so important?
Did you know that nearly one-third of consumers will intentionally revisit an establishment because they enjoyed the music that was being played during their last visit?
Music is an often overlooked, but very powerful tool that your business should be using to help keep your booths packed and your customers happy. Here’s how music can help your business stay booming.
The music complements the atmosphere of your restaurant
Curating the ultimate atmosphere in your restaurant starts with the right listening experience.
Your restaurant likely has its very own niche, carefully curated through your interior design, menu, and the general attitude you hope to portray to your patrons. Music is, of course, the cherry on top of all of this. Or at least, it can be!
Take, for example, the holiday season.
Let’s start with Restaurant A. Though the restaurant has spent hours decorating and putting together the perfect dining room for the holiday season, its patrons are stuck listening to radio ads or the generic top 40 hits that are being played by the local radio host. It detracts from the general celebratory feeling, and the fast-paced music leads patrons to finish their meals quickly.
On the other side of town is Restaurant B, where cheery booths filled with twinkling lights and smiling faces are accompanied by the gentle hum of holiday classics that families can recognize without the interruption of ads. It creates and maintains feelings of nostalgia that transform a restaurant from a simple place to have a meal into a home away from home.
But that’s just the holidays. The right music creates the right environment at any time of the year. It makes it easy to cater to your patrons around the clock, no matter who filters in.
Want to keep Saturday brunch family-friendly? Opt for listening stations that are free of explicit tunes. Looking to host the big game with wing specials? Pick a classic rock station to set the mood.
Music can influence the behavior of your diners
If you’ve ever had a sudden craving for a menu item you may not have typically considered, it may not have been as random as it at first seemed. A study of 180 Scottish college students at Curtin and Macquarie Universities has revealed that the music we listen to can impact the decisions we make while exploring a menu.
Study participants were given identical menus and divided into different rooms with different listening experiences including music from genres and cultures. The studies included curated listening of The Beach Boys, The Peking Brothers, and Sunidhi Chauhan. After participants sat in their respective rooms and browsed the menu, they were asked to order.
The results revealed that the music participants listened to significantly impacted the decisions they made while ordering and even affected the menu items participants would remember.
If your restaurant has an extensive list of American food, this study suggests that the right playlist for you would include the American classics. But if you’re serving a French or Benelux menu, you might consider bistro music!
Music creates a positive experience for new customers
You’ve probably heard radio hosts say the term “feel-good tunes”, but you may wonder why music makes you feel good. Aside from the hard science that shows us time and time again that music releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is responsible for feelings of joy and happiness, there’s the added benefit of the association through social circumstances that are positive.
Music triggers parts of our brains associated with working memory and memory retrieval, which means that as we listen we not only recall our past but also build lasting future memories surrounded by sound.
It can go a long way in creating an atmosphere in your diner that patrons associate with lasting, positive memories, or in creating a space that feels like home.
Selecting stations that feature feel-good throwbacks that parents or grandparents may have hummed along to is a great way to inspire nostalgia while folks share comfort food. You can also use music to create powerful associations with themes, like metal for your hard-rock-themed burgers.
Whichever route you choose to take, music will make your diner a spot that patrons can never forget.
UPshow Premium Audio makes it easy to create the perfect restaurant music
Ready to reap the benefits of music in your diner? UPshow Premium Audio can get your spot up and running with music in no time.
You can pick from dozens of music channels
Now, while we don’t have to go fixing something if it ain’t broke, we certainly don’t have to settle for a music playlist that loops for hours either.
Finding music options that work for you is easy with UPshow, and it doesn’t come with the caveat of repetitive and boring playlists either.
UPshow Premium Audio features over 50 stations of curated playlists that will capture the mood and genre you want for your restaurant. It’s as easy as scrolling through your options and picking the one that works best for your establishment.
Best of all? The stations are fully-licensed and ad-free. That’s right, no more listening to advertisements over breakfast, lunch or dinner—just hours of totally uninterrupted music right at your fingertips.
It’s a stress-free solution for music playing in your restaurant that doesn’t involve waitresses huddling over a phone to pick the next tune or an old CD that plays on a loop.
You can control your music from anywhere
If you are operating in more than one location, you may be facing one of two challenges. Either you’re looking for a way to create a consistent atmosphere across locations or you’re struggling to create distinct atmospheres for each location’s unique needs.
Luckily, UPshow Premium Audio makes solving either problem easy!
You can manage UPshow Premium Audio with the touch of a button anytime, anywhere. It makes it easy to keep track of what is playing across your locations so that you can ensure that your patrons are getting the most out of their dining experience wherever they go.
This also makes it easy for you to switch up your streams for each location or to change your playlist throughout the day. You might opt for a more upbeat station to get patrons in and out of the door a little faster during the lunch rush, but slow things down in the evening to encourage a slow sit-down meal that makes room for an extra round of drinks and dessert.
You can create an audio-visual experience from one platform
Synchronize your sounds and your screens for the ultimate immersive experience.
Using a single solution for your digital displays and in-house music is the perfect way to generate a cohesive experience in your diner. You can showcase featured menu items on your screens and play genres that inspire those menu selections to keep plates moving out of the kitchen.
It’s also the perfect way to tie in the ultimate family feel by creating opportunities for trivia and entertainment. You can even create a community with social media integration: invite your regulars to share pictures on screens through social media hashtags, celebrate your local community and invite your patrons to come by for special events.
It’s just another easy way to make your restaurant feel a little more like home.
Try out a demo of UPshow Premium Audio today
Every community has a local spot they can rely on for good food and good times. Make your restaurant the place that everyone piles into on the weekend with UPshow.
It’s an easy solution that integrates audio and visuals to craft the ultimate atmosphere for your community to gather in. There’s no need to worry about licensing, ads, or content you don't want to see; UPshow puts your diner at center stage. So, what are you waiting for? Try UPshow Premium Audio today!
