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One of the important dining interests for focusing on smelling and tasting during dining in eatery places is having concentration or attention perceived of what we eat or drink. The dining satisfaction influenced positive behavior of return intent and recommending the eatery places to others. Higher noise level may distract the concentration for having a fine dining experience and could interrupt the ability of smelling and tasting senses. Settings in the noisy atmosphere of eatery places such as located near to a busy road, open kitchen, table layout and inappropriate decoration as well as the patrons’ conversation behavior may affect speech intelligibility. Ultimately, the long period exposure towards high decibel sound and noise affecting not only the health and wellbeing but also the social interactions and communications. It is also having a direct significant impact to human preferences on acoustic comfort during their dining. However, there is no specific classification or rating system established in Malaysia to assist the information on acoustic environment obtained in the eatery place. The aim of this paper is to identify the framework of eatery places classification in Malaysia within the context of the acoustic comfort and its performance. The main concern is to elucidate clearly different categorization of eatery places which might have significant on human psychoacoustics. Based on ongoing research, this paper will discuss on the critical literature reviews to develop a conceptual framework in classifying eatery places typologies and diners’ acoustical preferences.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the diners’ preference and perception on six acoustic classifications in eatery places during their casual dining. These classifications’ relationship with diners’ experience and significant impacts on diners’ preferences and perceptions during casual dining will be analyzed. Design/methodology/approach The data was collected quantitatively with randomly distributed self-administrated questionnaires during the restaurants' operating hours; 449 respondents who dined in at two casual dining restaurants in Melaka city area participated. Findings Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests revealed that the majority of the diners were not adversely affected by the noise level, and they did not have difficulties with their conversations. The results also indicated that the respondents felt that the noise did not stop them from returning to the restaurants. This study's findings may lay the groundwork for future studies to provide the acoustic comfort classification in eatery places, which can also be integrated and synthesized to be used as a reference for acoustic design and practice. Research limitations/implications The number of participants used simple random sampling method. Therefore, the sample cannot be typical for the target population, and there is a limited possibility of generalizing the present findings. The data collection was only gathered from two eatery places with similar typologies at the similar demographic background of customers because it was collected at Melaka city. Thus, the impacts of customers may differ at other typologies and locate in different regions, and the physical environment and the quality offered are also different in other places. The measured determinant factors only focus on the diners’ characteristics; thus, future research should be done to investigate other determinant factors impacting the preference and perceived acoustical comfort in eatery places. Practical implications The findings in this study would provide a basis reference to assess and evaluate the acoustic classification in eatery places that suits the customers’ perceived satisfaction. Social implications This study identified that demographic characteristic, gender and age are not the prominent determinant factors influencing the diners’ preference and perceived acoustical comfort in eatery places. Moreover, the days and dining hours were also found to be the determinants that will influence the preferences. Originality/value This paper has developed determining factors on acoustics classification that can be applied upon designing eatery places as well as a fundamental approach in developing rating for acoustics comfort index as reference for the diners to choose where to dine based on their preference and activities.