Background music for cafes: what to play from open to close
Background music for cafes, hour by hour: what suits mornings, laptop hours and evenings, which stations to try, and which ACUM tariff applies.
Background music for cafes should stay relaxed and change with the room: soft instrumental or acoustic in the morning, a little livelier during the lunch rush, and warmer and slower toward evening. Treat that as a starting point, then adjust it by ear.
What should a cafe play at each hour?
Choose for whoever is sitting in the room right now rather than running one list all day. This table is a first test, using stations from BGplay's cafe page:
| When | What's happening | Try first |
|---|---|---|
| Opening and takeaway | Short visits, loud coffee machine | Light and steady: Bossa Nova or Acoustic Chill |
| Mid-morning | People sitting, reading and typing | Mostly wordless: Lo-Fi or Jazz Trio |
| Lunch rush | Full tables, a queue, lots of talk | More movement: Modern Pop |
| Afternoon | Fewer people, the pace drops | Back to calm: Acoustic Chill |
| Evening | Friends and dates, nobody in a hurry | Warmer and fuller: Jazz Trio or Bossa Nova |
These are suggestions to test, not findings. No study can tell you the exact tempo that suits your cafe.
Does slower music make customers stay longer?
It may, but the best local evidence comes from a restaurant, not a cafe. A 2024 field experiment by Malcman and colleagues, run at an Italian restaurant in central Tel Aviv, found diners stayed an average of 80.3 minutes with slow music and 57.3 minutes with fast music, with no significant effect of tempo on the bill.
For a cafe, that is something to think about rather than a rule. If you run short of seats at the rush, check that the music isn't slowing you down. If the room is half empty, there is no reason to hurry anyone. The full breakdown is in our restaurant guide.
How is a laptop cafe different from a takeaway counter?
They serve a completely different visit, so the music differs too. Where people work for two hours, the music should stay in the background even at lunchtime, with no catchy hooks or sharp jumps in level. At a takeaway counter the visit lasts a few minutes, so you can afford something brighter and more present all day, and Modern Pop is the natural station to try.
Should cafe music have lyrics?
During work hours it is safer to start without words, and evenings leave more room for vocals. Lo-Fi and Jazz Trio lean instrumental, while Modern Pop and Acoustic Chill lean toward English vocals. BGplay doesn't guarantee that a station is fully instrumental, so listen to it before you schedule it for the morning.
How loud should it be?
Loud enough that the room feels alive, and quiet enough to talk across a table without raising your voice. There is no magic number. Sit by the nearest speaker, then at the farthest table, and check again at the rush, because a level that sounds right in an empty room gets swallowed when it fills up.
What does BGplay offer a cafe?
BGplay is a subscription service that streams 100% AI-generated background music to businesses. Cafes get five stations: Lo-Fi, Acoustic Chill, Modern Pop, Bossa Nova and Jazz Trio. The weekly planner sets what plays and when by the business's clock, with a default station for unscheduled time, so you can turn the table above into a schedule once. It runs in any modern browser on a device you already have. You can't build your own playlists or play offline.
Which license does a cafe need?
A business playing music from the regular repertoire generally needs a license. At ACUM, cafes fall under tariff T002, where the fee depends on seat capacity and weekly operating days, and recording rights are a separate matter. Our guide to music licenses for businesses explains it in full. BGplay's catalog is not ACUM or recording-body repertoire, so the service is designed to avoid those bills.
Frequently asked questions
Can I play a personal Spotify account in my cafe?
Spotify says its service is only for personal, non-commercial use and can't be played publicly in businesses such as restaurants and stores. We cover Spotify, YouTube and radio here.
How many stations does a cafe need?
Two or three are enough to start: one for the morning, one for busy hours and one for the evening. If one doesn't work, swap it after a few days of listening.
What plays during hours I didn't schedule?
The default station you chose in the weekly planner plays, so you don't have to fill every hour of the week.
How do you start testing this?
Pick the one part of the day that bothers you most, usually the morning or the rush, and change only that for a week. Ask your staff what they heard, since they are there all day. Our complete guide to background music for businesses goes further on choosing by business type.
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