Would you like a sonic boom with your sushi?

I have a new concept for a restaurant.  It will have a scenic overlook as your table is just beside one of the major runways at O'Hare Airport.  This will be a gourmet restaurant which will serve great food and have a wonderful view of all arriving and departing flights.  Of course, because of these positives your meal will cost a king's ransom.  The one small, and apparently inconsequential drawback, will be that you will not be able to speak with the people at the table, or hear them, and you might go deaf if you eat at the restaurant more than once.

You say, this is preposterous.  I say, have you dined out recently?  There is a new trend which, according to a friend in the industry, is to make restaurants more cosmopolitan.  You must have a restaurant where you both feel and hear the hubbub around you.  Translation, it has to be so noisy that it rattles the fillings in your teeth.  This is accomplished primarily in three manners.  One, place the tables sufficiently close to each other so that when you push your chair back you are pushing another individual toward a table.  Two, construct the restaurant with little or no sound absorbing materials.  Three, and this is really crucial, play music sufficiently loud so that the waiter must yell to announce the special of the day.

Apparently this is a successful trend for these places are invariably packed.  I for one can not figure it out.  If I am spending a tremendous amount of money for a meal, I would like to be able to speak with the individual who sits across from me or next to me without ripping my larynx into shreds.  If there is music at all I want it to accentuate the experience not dominate it.  Lastly, I would like enough room so that I can tilt my chair back without settling into the ribcage of the person in back of me. 

But, I am apparently in the "uncool", "unhip" minority.  Well, what I say to that is, "I am right, and you are wrong".  So there!