The lakes always keep coming up with new restaurants. And the new restaurants just brought in chefs from New York or some such place. The new chefs dream up recipes for filet mignon sliders perched upon gluten-free garlic roasted bagels, or master chef Adolphus, originally from New Orleans, who cooks up gentle souffles only with brown cage-free eggs from an organic farm run by a loving grandmother in Vesuvius, Virginia. And then new concepts like “Pancakes and Pedicures” for eating breakfast while having your toenails done. No way – but hey who thought that Menards, a fancy lumberyard, would ever sell groceries and electric trains.

But I am a cranky old-timer. How old? Do the math – I watched “Howdy Doody” as a child! I enjoy good food but in a quiet setting such as places where decibel levels are at 60 (speaking levels), not 80 (hair dryer volume) where you have to shout at your dinner mate over the din. For you sound challenged, a decibel is a measure of the intensity of sound. A decibel scale is logarithmic which means that a level of increase of 10 means that the sound is 10 times more intense. But let’s not forget that noise is a pollutant just like toxic waste. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency notes: “Noise is a pollutant. While its physical and emotional effects are difficult to define quantitatively, the noise level itself can be measured.”

For now, many restaurants and particularly bar owners still believe that loud is better as it sells more alcohol to customers. You have an “in” place if it’s loud. A well-respected restaurant manager put it this way: “The baby boomer/disposable income wave likes conviviality of being out and about and doesn’t want to be excluded from patronizing great spots because they can’t enjoy the full experience. There has to be balance between the energy of noise and the total enjoyment of the place.”

Then of course we have loud sit-down restaurants that still cater to kids as if crayons will appease them and keep them quiet. That was the genius of McDonalds – to build a playground inside a restaurant to channel kids’ energy and loudness. And in Europe the solution for many restaurants is the policy that no children under 12 are allowed after 5 o’clock.

To protect yourself from noise, you have to be careful as the restaurant greeters will often try to sit you next to existing customers as it’s easier for the wait staff to serve people grouped together. Do you really want to hear that Brad and Angelina are finally getting divorced and that Brad and Jennifer are an item again?

And then you have groups sitting down en masse to celebrate a birthday, sales goals, Vikings victories, etc., where cries of “get another bottle of wine” abound. But restaurants are not public utilities and they can choose whatever noise level they want. However, customers are now more wary of noise levels. The online ordering site OpenTable now lists “subjective” noise level of many of its listings. However they are open to interpretation. I looked at five in Minneapolis I have eaten in and all said “moderate” for their noise level particularly in tourist season. I, the cranky old man, found it intolerable and won’t go back.

Then we have apps on which VOX magazine has an article title: “Restaurants are too freaking loud. This app helps you shame them.” The app is called SoundPrint and it’s basically a Yelp for noise level in thousands of restaurants, bars and cafes across America. Yes SoundPrint is here. According to Vox: “The app has a decibel reader, and its noise reviews are generated by SoundPrint users, who can submit their decibel readings – from quiet and moderate to loud and very loud.”

I predict we will have a restaurant called Sound of Silence where in addition to its menu being posted on a window it will have its lunch and dinner time decibel levels.