PONS
A traditional restaurant grooves to SOIVA from lunch to late night
Restaurant Pons sits on the seventh floor of Tampere’s Hämeenkatu, a prime location with a view. Originally founded in the 1940s, the restaurant was known as Hämeensilta for over six decades before the space became home to nightclubs. PONS carries forward the Hämeensilta legacy, offering both fine dining and late-night entertainment.
Restaurant PONS opens up to stunning views of Tammerkoski rapids and Hämeensilta bridge. The scenery transforms throughout the day – and so does the restaurant’s atmosphere.
“We serve lunch every weekday. In the evenings, PONS becomes an à la carte restaurant, and on weekend nights we transform into an adults-only venue,” says Marko Meronen, one of PONS’s founders. Meronen was instrumental in launching the successful H5 restaurant on Hämeenkatu and has since helped several other restaurants flourish. H5 Restaurants opened PONS in 2022.
From dinner to the dance floor – without leaving your seat
Background music gets particularly challenging when a restaurant offers different “settings” depending on the time of day and day of the week. The music and atmosphere need to flow with the venue’s daily rhythm. During weekday lunch, the music intensity matches the pace of a working day. As dinner service begins, things calm down, then gradually build towards the evening. On weekends, the atmosphere intensifies as the night progresses, setting the stage for the DJ to take over.
“Once dinner’s finished and guests are wondering where to continue their evening, our idea is to use music to build the atmosphere and create a feeling that they can keep the night going right here at PONS. No need to go anywhere,” Meronen explains. Guests crave different vibes at different points of the evening, and background music plays a huge role in that. When the restaurant adapts to what customers need throughout the day and they’re enjoying themselves, sales flow steadily from lunch through to the early hours.
Shaping the atmosphere gradually demands playlists that fit the restaurant’s brand and evolve smoothly as the evening unfolds. Meronen is happy with SOIVA’s extensive playlists, tailored specifically for PONS’s different moods and needs. The playlists update automatically as new music gets added to the system.
“Before SOIVA, our music content consisted of shorter preset-style playlists. The staff got tired of them quickly. We tried solving this by playing several playlists at once, which made things pretty erratic. With SOIVA, we get extensive, longer playlists that evolve throughout the evening, all tailored to PONS’s style. After switching to SOIVA, the feedback was that the content is now 100% better.”
SOIVA Player located near the PONS bar counter.