Should management intervene when diners are exceptionally loud?

Noisy restaurants: When customers are screeching
Posted on 03/17/2011 at 5:17 am by Michael Bauer in Between Meals, Noise, Service/Tips


I’ve written many posts about the noise level in restaurants, yet rarely about a companion problem: extremely loud diners. In cases of shrill, overly boistrous diners, no amount of sound baffling will help — particuarly if the loud party is at the next table. Here’s an e-mail I received recently from a reader commenting on my post about the noisiest restaurants in the Bay Area :

Your article reminded me of an incident I had at Sushi Ran a few years ago. We were with a party of 3, seated next to a party of 5 women. They were extremely noisy. We asked the waitress if she could ask them to keep the noise down. The waitress refused to do this.
The irony is that together they spent $50, yet the 3 of us spent $750. I have not been back since. So the question is: Should management intervene if a party is extremely noisy?