Adelaide audiologist LAURA DREXLER has created a website and app to help diners find quiet places to eat. The Ambient Menu highlights quiet times and eateries for the hearing-impaired and those with normal hearing who prefer less noise while dining out. She believes it’s the first of its kind in Australia, and possibly the world.
While studying audiology, Mrs Laura Drexler turned her research project into a small business that is helping thousands of Australians with and without hearing loss have better experiences while eating out.
“In 2019, my student group and I were looking at the interaction between family dinners and hearing loss. Family dinners are good for mental health, social engagement and overall wellbeing but hearing loss can affect those things in a negative way,” she says.
“We were studying the link but instead people we interviewed spoke about noisy restaurants, how challenging that was for them, how isolated they felt and how at the end of the night, they were exhausted and started to withdraw. I thought, ‘surely there’s a website I can direct my future patients to to help them find a quieter place to eat’, but there wasn’t so I created one.”
She received grants from Onkaparinga Council, Business SA and the Deafness Foundation to help establish the website.
“The Ambient Menu is a web app that connects people who struggle to hear in background noise to an acoustically friendly restaurant. We act as a conduit to guide people to a restaurant where they can comfortably have a conversation and our mission is to take the ‘din’ out of dinner,” Drexler says.
“Diners leave reviews based on background noise, food and service because you don’t want to go somewhere that’s like a library or has terrible food or service. It’s all about finding the right place for you at the right time that suits your listening needs.”
In five years the Ambient Menu has amassed nearly 10,000 subscribers who log on to find good local eateries with matching ambience.
Restaurants can achieve a higher rating by meeting criteria during accreditation from Drexler and her husband Andy who have completed training in acoustics and as noise assessors. They personally visit to review and provide an education pack with noise-reduction tips to restaurant owners.
Diners search for their sound level – quiet, low, moderate or lively – and suburb.
The Ambient Menu lists more than 6,000 restaurants of which about 1,300 have been reviewed in South Australia and Queensland including the Sunshine Coast and about 100 in Brisbane. There are a handful in Victoria with plans to include more this year.
As the business launched in Adelaide during the COVID-19 pandemic, South Australian restrictions on dining made Drexler pivot to focus on Queensland where there were less restrictions, and she could visit friends.
She won the 2023 Flinders University Early Career Alumni Award because of how many people the business has helped, was selected as a South Australian Featured Woman to Watch 2024 and nominated for Community Leader of the Year and Emerging Business of the Year for the 2024 Small Business BEAM Awards.
“It’s a lot of work, especially since I also work as an audiologist and in ambulance patient transport, but it’s worth it when I get messages from people thanking me and saying how much it’s helped them as they can now enjoy dining out,” Drexler says.
Paramedic work
The path to audiologist and business owner was an unusual one. At 19 she became a police officer but after five years swapped to being a paramedic. Her police officer firearms instructor husband developed very high frequency noise-induced hearing loss, tinnitus and vestibular issues. At one stage he was bedridden with vertigo and struggling.
“This piqued my interest in vertigo, and along with seeing ambulance patients with these issues, I took an interest in vestibular issues. My husband achieved tinnitus relief from seeing an audiologist who gave him counselling and strategies and both said I would make a good audiologist,” she recalls.
While working as a paramedic and with a young son, Drexler began her Masters of Audiology at Flinders University.
“Going back to uni in my 40s, being the oldest in my course, getting a massive HECS debt and going from being an experienced paramedic to a newbie was not a decision I took lightly but it was the right decision. I love my job, it’s challenging, rewarding and something different every day.”
After 20 years in the ambulance service, Drexler still works part-time in patient transfer to pay people who help with the Ambient Menu gig. Her main career is as an audiologist for Adelaide Audiology working for an ENT surgeon doing WorkCover and compensation claims. She also works in adult rehabilitation doing hearing loss assessments and at a private clinic on vestibular assessments. She has recently quit a fourth job, fitness instructing, due to her workload and is doing extra studies in acoustic consultancy.
Accreditation for quietness
To accredit restaurants as part of the initiative, Drexler or her husband attend a restaurant, speak to staff, find out what they have to offer, the quietest times, busiest times and quietest places to sit. Additionally, they evaluate acoustics.
Drexler has also recruited ‘Ear Buds’ – friends, audiologists and audiometrists – who find and review restaurants including speaking to owners and, with their permission, advertise their quieter and busier times. So far, they have done 128 reviews.
“The restaurants love it because they’re not getting noise complaints and because it helps attract customers to quieter nights,” she says.
Ambient Menu accreditation includes taking noise readings when calculating acoustic capacity – how many people can be there before it reaches a livelier level. To achieve this status, restaurants must meet quiet criteria for 80% of dining times. If this is achieved, they also receive an education pack advising how to speak to people who are hard of hearing.
“It gives tips like ‘don’t turn your back when speaking, have your face in the light, have large font menus, and don’t yell. We also provide a seating map showing quieter spots,” Drexler explains.
Restaurants that have been accredited are seeing peaks in numbers, she adds.
In 2023 Drexler did a presentation on 20 ways to find a quiet restaurant for the CICADA (Cochlear Implant Club and Advisory Association) Australia volunteer organisation to support cochlear implant patients and she is now on its committee due to her passion for helping people with hearing loss have better dining out experiences.
Tips include not going on the main strip where most restaurants are as they’re normally busy because they have high rent.
“Reasons some restaurants are louder include the louder the music is the faster people eat, the more alcohol they drink and therefore they make a bigger profit on alcohol, which itself has a high profit margin,” she says. “There’s also the cocktail party effect where alcohol temporarily gives you a hearing loss and if you can’t hear your own voice, you start to regulate it by talking louder, then the next person talks louder to be heard over you and before you know it, everyone’s yelling.”
The business also advises restaurants on how to reduce noise such as which way to face tables and speakers, and furniture and fittings that are better for acoustics. Additionally, it gives patrons ideas such as where to sit to minimise sound coming from behind.
The business is truly a family affair as the couple’s son Michael, 15, makes the videos for social media and does art-work, including the logo design, and data entry.
The website also lists access friendly venues for less mobile patrons in wheelchairs, with walkers or vestibular disorders.
Drexler’s goal is for Ambient Menu to be in every state in Australia and become a household name. She is always looking out for more audiologists and audiometrists to become Ear Buds and do detailed reviews.
