Guide
Best Music Streaming Service for Restaurants

The full guide for restaurant owners who want to get serious with their brand-fit music. Insights and tips from our music team.
Posted on February 21, 2024
Imagine opening up a menu at a place youâve never been to before. Thereâs the favourites, the Ă la carte with exactly what youâd expect. Maybe thereâs a tasting menu, promising a curated experience to show off the tastiest new ideas.
For both, thereâs real design involved. Guests want to feel catered to. They want to feel that the experience theyâll get is a journey, not a stopover. Itâll be memorable, rich, maybe even surprising. Itâll be worth it.
Choosing good music to play in a restaurant is surprisingly similar to a truly great dining experience. You might not know whatâs coming next, you just have to trust it, to go with the twists and turns, challenging, confirming and crafting someoneâs experience.
In other words, whateverâs coming through your speakers should be getting as much of your attention as anything that comes out your kitchen.
What does music for restaurants even look like?
Especially for restaurants, youâll want to have options for peak and off-peak hours, a little vintage nostalgia, some classic jazz spinners and maybe some location-specific sounds if youâre showcasing food from different corners of the world.
Youâll need enough music so no one gets bored, with enough control and oversight to make it fit your brand. And it all needs to be legal.
The good news? Choosing the best music for different businesses is what we do. We make sure itâs all curated, balanced and made to fit. Weâve put the full pitch here, if you want to go straight to the sales and stats.
Thereâs 70+ ready-made playlists for restaurants when you get into your account, all curated and refined. Theyâre customizable, so you can always take control and add in something specific when you want.
But where should you start?
Before you press play, the Soundtrack music team put together a quick list of things to check, to make sure your music design is as solid as the rest of the experience.
Tips from the Soundtrack music team
1: Consider all the ingredients
First off, music should match your restaurantâs concept. Itâs not quite as simple as making sure French cuisine doesnât come with a side of Mexican mariachi - thereâs often a lot of nuance here. And remember, your diners will have to listen to whatever youâre playing for at least the length of their meal.
Alf Tumble Borgman, Curator and Music Supervisor for Enterprise clients at Soundtrack: âA guest arrives at your restaurant with certain expectations. An oyster bar in the Scottish countryside will have a different atmosphere and should have a different sound than an oyster bar in London, for example.â
Play music that fits your brand, rather than your personal or your customersâ taste. Be consistent.
âIs your brand sophisticated and forward-thinking?â asks Jenny Seth, whoâs been a Music Supervisor at Soundtrack for six years. âThen go for some elegant modern music.â
A Soundtrack playlist like Late Night Dining or Elegant Lounge can work here, serving up tasteful, new music that still has some energy to it.
Is the brand more straightforward and traditional? Then your music should sound just like that. The music should fit the place, just like your interior, your staff, your lighting, your marketing communication, your logo, your menu.
Hits of the 80s or Feelgood Oldies always go down well here, and inside your account we highlight exactly whatâs the most popular restaurant playlists each day.
2: Serve it while itâs hot
Avoid repeating the same songs. Your guests might not hear a song coming back around later in the night, but your staff will. Keeping things new helps motivation and morale.
To get started and see how Soundtrack makes this a breeze, try creating your first Station. Itâll prompt you for keywords to get started, and youâll have a 600 song playlist ready to go immediately. You can keep adding keywords to create all kinds of combinations, whatever best suits you.
3: Trust the service
Itâs easy for us to say, we know. But itâs our number one tip - trust your music service to do its job, and do it well.
All the available songs and how theyâve been categorized, thatâs all come from a combination of our AI and music experts. They put the manual work in to make sure what ends up on your playlist is relevant, appropriate, and optimized for business spaces.
Behind the scenes, thereâs a lot at play when deciding what we put in our mixes. For example, too much popular music in the charts actually turns off your customers, compared to playing lesser-known songs. Itâs a drop in sales as high as 9% in some cases.
âWe follow playlists, tastemakers, charts, and artists, consuming music news and keeping up with the pop music discourse,â Jenny says. âWe constantly discuss and redefine genres, sounds, and other musical concepts in the music team.â
As Soundtrack's Content VP Magnus RydĂŠn adds, âPut your brand in focus and remove your own musical taste.â We couldnât have said it better.
Ready to get started?
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