Why are cafes so loud lately?

Opening thread commentary.

Honestly it's probably partly acoustic design and partly pandemic culture shift — we used to go to cafes for focused work, now everyone goes there as a social hub too. The hard surfaces in modern cafe builds plus open layouts with no dividers means every conversation carries across the room. I stopped trying to get deep work done at coffee shops about six months ago and started going just for the caffeine; if you need focus, there are way better options than competing with espresso machines and group chats.