Calando Panels offer the ideal acoustic treatment for Gelaspresso Cafe.
The Dock Group in Gladstone, Queensland, wanted to expand their Dock East Shore Restaurant offering. They planned to renovate the garage below the restaurant into a café and takeaway shop, which they called Gelaspresso.
The new venue soon became a favourite with people visiting the nearby parks. Customers said online that Gelaspresso’s gelato and coffee “hit the spot” after a day of play in the outdoors.
The Challenge
Unfortunately, the refurbishment project wasn’t completely smooth sailing: the venue’s acoustics soon became an issue. As with most garages, the construction was mainly concrete, which created a loud environment for staff and guests. A restaurant or café with the wrong ambience can negatively impact the diner’s experience – including their food tastes.
In a recent article, Malcolm Sutton reports, ‘Noisy restaurants leave a bad taste for diners, researchers recommend quiet spaces’, and that “we found that even at normal noise levels, noise can have a bad effect on your dining experience”.
Yet most modern hospitality spaces could practically be designed to make noise: mid-century and modern minimalism are both here to stay. These design schools promote sparse modern décor, with high exposed ceilings and almost no curtains, upholstery or carpets.
Modern hospitality design has many contributors to noise:
- Floors no longer have carpets
- Seating is not upholstered
- Tablecloths are a rarity
- Communal tables are popular
- Open kitchens
- Clinking plates
- Shifting seats on hard floors, and
- Loud (sometimes live!) music.
With all this in mind, Gelaspresso wanted to create a quieter and more comfortable experience for both their guests and their staff.
The Avenue Solution
After contacting Avenue Interior Systems to help with their acoustic concern, the client sent plans and photos to the design team. From this information, Avenue’s engineer modelled the Gelaspresso Café to create a graph showing the current reverberation time and the improvement that was achievable with Avenue’s recommended solution.
The Gelaspresso team chose to install Calando Panel from Avenue across the ceiling surface. Calando Panel is a sophisticated acoustic polyester panel that achieves excellent acoustic performance. It’s available in a white or black finish, or can be covered in acoustic fabric to match your decor.
Another point in its favour: by choosing to cover the entire ceiling with white Calando Panel, the Gelaspresso team reduced their renovation workload by removing the need to paint the ceiling.
Results Achieved by Avenue
In hospitality, creating the right ambience for staff and guests is vital. The correct acoustics in your space will encourage repeat business and increase the amount of time a customer will spend at your venue. And when customers increase the time they spend with you, it’s likely they will increase the number of items they buy.
It’s little wonder that Avenue’s client was very happy with the result, telling us, “It went well. Happy with it, made a big difference!“
For expert ideas on improving your hospitality space, contact the Avenue team today at 1300 827 177.
We look forward to Designing Your Silence.
