Restaurants and windows

Post Reply New Topic

While talking about restaurants with my sister last night, I realized something about myself that I had never noticed.

In general, the frequency with which I go to a restaurant is highly dependent on the windows and the amount of light. Those restaurants I go to most have good windows that allow in plenty of light.

My favorite restaurant of the last few years doesn't have the best food, but they have plenty of windows on three sides of the dining area and with reasonably comfortable booths next to the windows. I love to take something in there to read and will usually spend an hour or two every time I go there. On the other hand, the interior lighting isn't that good and I avoid the place after dark. I always sit in a booth next to a window -- on the south side in the mid day and on the west side later in the afternoon and early evening while it is still light.

There's a hamburger place in my town with good windows. They have good lights at night and so I like to sit there and read even after dark.

Another restaurant that I used to like was a small Chinese restaurant with excellent food. They had good windows along the north and south sides. I nearly always sat on the south side of the restaurant next to the windows. They also had good light and so I would sometimes go there after dark as well.

But that restaurant moved to a bigger building across the street with minimal windows. The interior lights are dark, too. The same food but with more choices but I feel less comfortable sitting there -- on the rare occasion I go in, I don't bother to take something to read because I'm only going to be there long enough to gulp my food and them I'm out of there.

At this restaurants first location, there is now a Japanese restaurant. Unlike the Chinese restaurant, they put shutters over the window and don't have much interior light. It's dark and I don't feel comfortable so I don't eat there much. When I do, I sit on the south side next to the window and open the shutters to let in some light. Of course, I don't go there at night.

There's a restaurant next door to my office. It doesn't have much in the way of windows and it is always relatively dark. If I want something from there, I bring it back to my office to eat.

There also used to be a hamburger joint about a block away. No windows at all. The hamburgers were hit and miss -- either really good or very greasy. They also had a good lunch special. I always hated to eat there and would bring the food back to my office.

As near as I can tell, I don't feel comfortable eating at restaurants where it is dark. The brighter the restaurant, the more comfortable I fell and the more likely I am to go there. Of course, there are some restaurants with plenty of light but with food that I don't like and so I don't go there at all. Looking back over the years, my favorite places to eat tend to be where there is plenty of light. The darker it is, the more uncomfortable I feel.

Also, we have a kitchen in my office. It's painted a dark red. It has a table where we can eat, but in all these years, I think I've sat down and ate at the table twice. Those dark walls make the room dark and it just isn't that comfortable. While I frequently cook my own lunch there, I usually take it to another part of the building to eat.

I remember Ernest Hemingway wrote a story called "A Clean, Well-Lit Place" (or something like that). I don't remember the story, but I love the title of the story.

Is anyone else like this? I think some people prefer it dark, but I never feel all that comfortable in such places.

I don't visit restaurants much and when I do I am not the one who gets the choice but restaurants I remember the best are almost all underground - in basements or even in an old mine 248 metres underground or something like that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bochnia_Salt_Mine . So I either I like it dark or there is more underground restaurants than aboveground ones.

I generally dislike bright spaces though so it might be really my brain messing with my memories - I just forget the aboveground restaurants and tend to remember underground ones. I always liked caves, mines, catacombs and old tunnels too so I am not surprised.

For me dimmer lighting is one step toward improving the experience. Even still, all the overlapping conversations, crying/screaming babies, clanking plates and waiters saying "sorry, I didn't hear you" just make me want to give up.

For me, a restaurant's noise level is paramount, more so than the light. Yes, my sensory sensitivity is noise, but it is more than that. It is quite well known now that newer restaurants are intentionally designed to be bright and noisy. This fact actually encourages customers to leave sooner, freeing up another table. I can't stand intentionally noisy restaurants.

I like sitting next to a window to look out of. But not if sunbeams are shining through it.

I hate noisy restaurants, too. The times when I tend to eat are generally when it is less crowded and thus, usually less noisy.

When I was a kid, we would be out working in the fields and would eat in shifts. My dad would change off for each of us and so we would eat one a time. I was always the last to eat and I loved that. Back then, my mother used to watch a soap opera, General Hospital, every day. By the time I ate, it was over and so I could eat with the tv off and read while I ate.

I still prefer to eat at least after 2 pm and often after 3pm. By that time, the local restaurants are pretty empty and so I don't have to deal with much noise. If I can't eat that late, I'm more likely to go in at 11 AM before the lunch crowd hits.

Supper is typically any time after 8 pm. If it is after about 9:30 pm, I eat my own cooking since there isn't much open. On those occasions when I eat supper at normal times, I nearly always bring the food home and eat it by myself.

My favorite restaurant, mentioned in my previous post, can be quite noisy when it is busy. Something about it carries the noise far too well. After 2 or 3, there are rarely more than two or three other tables and they tend to talk relatively quietly. Between 12 M (M is the correct abbreviation for noon) and 1 PM, it can get fairly noisy. On the rare occasions when I have eaten during those times, the noise has definitely gotten to me.

Good point. If the sun is shining on whatever I'm eating and reading and there is too much contrast with the interior, it does get bothersome.

I've only ever eaten at one restaurant where I enjoyed looking out the window and that restaurant closed in the very early 1980s. The restaurant was next to a very nice pasture area with horses in it and I liked to sit there and watch the horses.

I couldn't care less about looking out the window and seeing people or traffic.

I'm another for whom it's actually noise, more than any other element, that dictates where I want to be.

I cannot stand to be in a noisy restaurant; the problem being, they nearly all are.

Restaurants were my biggest "trigger location" when I was a child, although back then neither I nor my parents even knew I was on the spectrum (it was the 1960s).

Even as an adult, although I'm able to be in a restaurant, they're still not my favorite or most relaxing places, so I only tolerate them rather than actively enjoy them, and I don't go much.

Noise is the biggie for me.