Hand picked music (is better than canned music)

In addition to being front of the house managers, we are also iDJs (it's like being a DJ, except the only thing you spin is that wheel on the iPod) for the Monday Club Bar, which we enjoy a lot. Before the age of iPods, we used to have a satellite radio system that played the same 20 songs over and over during all meal periods. Now we have playlists that progress from quiet piano music in the early hours to some good vocal and rat pack for the peak of lunch service, smooth jazz in the afternoon, Parisian jazz in the early evening and another peak of high voltage jazz for prime dinner hours, ending the night with a romantic soundrack. All of it sprinkled with a bit of Bossa-Nova and Samba, Flamenco, Motown, Afro-Cuban and Italian music, just for fun. We also like the Beatles a lot here, so you're likely to hear them on brunch. Ask Sheila about her Beatles stories, she's got a bunch of good ones, including the time she went to see them live at Suffolk Downs.
I love the feeling of walking into the Monday Club in the middle of dinner service and finding the dinning room and bar full, the lighting at the right level and the right music playing at the right volume. The right volume may be disputed by some, getting specially more difficult to find a common ground if different age groups are taken into consideration. The rule of thumb for me is to keep it at the same volume as the natural sounds of the dinning room ( guests conversations being the main guideline ). So on a Saturday night when I'm behind the bar I adjust the volume a few times to keep it at the perfect level.
And then there is always the case-by-case factor that is the golden rule of hospitality. The lunch crowd is more likely to request that we turn down the volume for a business meeting than our Jazz Wednesdays fans, while a family thanked us for playing only the good Beatles, as opposed to "the cheesy Beatles" one recent Sunday morning. A cartoonist put down on paper his rendition of our soundtrack, when he was celebrating a birthday with friends at the bar one night (the drawing can still be seen hanging from the Love-Letters chandelier), while a couple that comes in often on Saturday afternoons suggested we make our own compilations to sell, which we declined (move over Hotel Costes) but we appreciated the comment.
And just like that, a soundtrack of sensitive playlists contributes to the general culture of the restaurant and maybe even the life of the square. I don't think that satellite rotating the Earth in the cold, cold space would care if my jazz crowd were having drinks at the bar and a conversation about Coltrane.