Two professional music consultants shed some light. Jonathan Shecter of the Vegas-based background music provider Playback Prodigy helped us understand the brass tacks of what restaurants need from a ...

When he was a teen, Nicolas Bragg worked at a restaurant for two years where the same boring music playlist blared over every dinner service. “The environment was stale,” recalls Bragg, who is now the ...

NEW YORK — Last fall a friend told me a story about Ryuichi Sakamoto, the renowned musician and composer who lives in the West Village. Sakamoto, it seems, so likes a particular Japanese restaurant in ...

in an era when even Facebook tracks one's music choices, restaurants are paying more attention than ever to what goes with the hickory-roasted carrots — not just the za'tar-laced creme fraîche but, ...

When Carlos Alzaola dips in and out of the various indoor and outdoor zones of the Cloverfield in Santa Monica and surveys the scene, a sixth sense tells the assistant general manager what sounds the ...

The mood a restaurant sets with music is as key to creating an environment as its decor. A recent visit to chef Bruno Davaillon’s opulent Bullion was a prime example of this. The lush vibes of ’70s ...

Think about the last time you walked into your favorite restaurant. What was the vibe? Chill? High-energy? Romantic? Now, what made it that way? The design, look and feel of the space? That has a lot ...

Monica Burton is the former deputy editor of Eater.com where she covered restaurants and food culture from 2017 to 2025. Max Boonthanakit’s desserts have been described as understated, yet intriguing.

Is a hyper-curated playlist the new house-made charcuterie? Whether a restaurant’s playing Lady Gaga or Langhorne Slim says as much about the place as its Mason jar drinking glasses or farm-to-table ...

May 20, 2025 - That sleek Spotify Premium account you've been proudly connecting to your restaurant's sound system? It's about as legally compliant as serving homebrewed moonshine from your kitchen.

Dallas restaurants keep searching for new ways to distinguish themselves from the pack: novelty concepts, swanky interior designs, locations like the 49th floor of a skyscraper. So why do so many of ...