Can I Talk? A Definitive Guide To Listening-Bar Etiquette

At 5 p.m. on a recent Saturday, the Park Slope bar Honeycomb is dark and loud. There are only two people here (including me), but the music — a bright, Brazilian bossa nova-sounding song I don’t recognize — is absolutely blasting. This is just one of a slew of listening bars that have cropped up in NYC in the last two years, touted as intentional spaces “designed for sound.” Per Honeycomb founder Jon Carlson, the concept originated in Japan in the 1950s, when bars or cafés dedicated to playing music on vinyl over high-quality sound systems began popping up around… Read Full Article