How to Design for Hospitality Acoustics from Atkar

Simonds Stadium Cafe, Au.diSlat acoustic ceiling

Creating Café Character: How to Design for Hospitality Acoustics

Melbourne's café culture is flourishing. With stylish new venues popping up on almost every corner, newly established businesses face the challenge of standing out from the crowd by providing their customers with more than just a simple latte. Tasked with delivering the perfect ambience to keep customers coming back, smart hospitality professionals are recognising the role of clever design and fit-out.

The exposed brick, concrete floors and high ceilings that have become synonymous with Melbourne's hospitality design language, owe their popularity to the sense of belonging they impart when combined with communal seating and open style kitchens. The inclusive nature of this design approach allows café-goers to feel they are part of the experience rather than simply eating in a sterile environment away from the action. With these larger, more open, spaces it is vitally important to consider acoustics within your design.

The combination of customers talking simultaneously, bustling staff, the front door opening and closing, the coffee grinder and the drama of the kitchen all create reverberation. If this reverberation is not absorbed with the correct acoustic panel solution, then the ambience that you worked so hard to design may not be achieved once your café is up and running.