For restaurant goers who are wisely opting to dine outside, the anticipatory rush associated with the aromas of chickens roasting and onions caramelizing has become mostly a memory. But even eaters who are braving dining rooms have lately noticed that those familiar smells have been wiped out by the chemical scent of perpetual sanitation.
This is apparently a sensitive topic in the restaurant cleaning product sector: None of the companies contacted for this story so much as acknowledged an e-mail outlining basic questions about disinfectants and how they smell.
For scholars of odor, though, the scenario is fascinating. Nobody yet knows how customers will react to the fundamental shift in sensory cues.
“When you take away aromas, it can be problematic,” says Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford who has written extensively on olfactory perceptions, including papers debunking the myth that up to 95 percent of taste is derived from smell.
He cites the example of a Cinnabon location’s sales plummeting when its oven was placed in the back of the store. (The cinnamon roll chain typically invests in the weakest hood that local code will allow and instructs its managers to bake trayfuls of cinnamon and sugar when their team’s churned out enough pastries for the day.)
No restaurant owner wants to inhibit customers’ appetites. But Spence says future research could show that patrons, especially those forced to base their assessments of a restaurant’s safety practices on a Palmetto Priority window sticker, are deeply reassured by the overwhelming smell of sanitizer. That feeling of comfort could potentially translate into higher check averages.
Or, having sniffed the emphasis on cleanliness, they might respond on a subconscious level, applying more hand sanitizer and keeping their masks on longer, advancing a restaurateur’s goal of protecting her employees from infection.
To back up that speculation, Spence points to a Dutch study which demonstrated that train passengers exposed to the citrus scent of cleaning products are considerably less likely to litter: Researchers collected three times as many trash items from unscented cars.
Still, Spence says “most people have an aversion to synthetic” smells. If a sanitizer reeks of chemical engineering, customers might have trouble quieting their instinctual sense that something is amiss. “Bad smells are potentially dangerous: We can’t stop thinking about them,” he says.
Restaurant owners intent on avoiding that situation may have to dig through the bag of tricks developed by modernist chefs, such as tying herbs to utensils; spritzing customers with more appealing scents and presenting dishes in plastic cloches with schnoz slots.
John Williams of The Royal Tern reports his Johns Island restaurant hasn’t had to resort to any sensory chicanery. “The cleaning service we use applies a botanical disinfectant solution that is very pleasant and has a mild scent,” he says.
Plus, the restaurant has the advantage of high ceilings and a screened-in porch, so diners should be able to detect the faint perfume of pluff mud. Of course, that’s assuming their sense of smell is intact.
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With sanitizers now scenting restaurant dining rooms, psychologists smell a research topic - Charleston Post Courier
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