Yep. The minimalist thing was definitely a 90’s era design shift. Sorry haters but that’s before our time. Helmut Lang ruled when I was a kid, high fashion was all about minimalist design, new architecture became more minimal… didn’t like it then as it seemed stuffy, impersonal, and cold. Still don’t like it. It’s not like I want to be suffocated in tchotchkes but frankly I don’t like looking like one of 10,000 models of android humans released that year, but defective because of wrinkled skin… I don’t want to sleep in a pod, and I don’t enjoy the ambiance of airplane hangars. IMO simple > minimal in all things design. I prefer whatever functions best, with aesthetics playing support. But then I prefer engineering to design really in the first place but only when it considers individual human experience/interaction… which today it seems not to. Engineering is to show off how over-engineered the details can get and design is for instagram. If people my age seem content with it, frankly it’s likely because it simply became the only option at some point.
There’s other reasons. Restaurants aren’t carpeted anymore because of the cost of cleaning the carpets. And a lot of restaurants commit the same crime as bars, which are deliberately made noisy so you can’t have a human conversation. That keeps people from lingering, so their throughput is higher.
It’s all about money, and if the places makes enough money, the owners won’t give a fig if the customers go deaf.
Bucca di Beppo is horrible. I ate there exactly once. It was like trying to eat inside a working juke box. Both sonically and visually, it was horrifying. And the food is just barely one step above cattle feed lot fodder. I don’t know how they did it but they managed to make my food literally tasteless. It was no better than cardboard slathered with marinara sauce.
Not being able to hear the people your with and possibly damaging your hearing seems upscale or luxurious? Okay…
Yeah like I dread going to Chipotle because of the very open spaces and the concrete floors that make all manner of noises so much louder. It’s why I order online and then pick up anymore despite it taking a bit longer than just waiting in line at the one nearest to me.
That is not the reason I dread going there…
Once upon a time, I worked in an Italian place where there were strategically placed speakers, so pockets of the restaurant were quiet. There were also tall leather-ish banquettes in the back (quiet area) so people could lunch discreetly or “take a meeting” in private. The front was tables and Perry Como and noise from the kitchen every time the doors swung open.
I miss that kind of restaurant design.
As a diner, I’m horrified. As someone who worked food service, that’s an apt song choice.
What? Speak up!
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