"Music stylist" picks the tunes that set the tone at Quinn's

It looks like a tony restaurant in the heart of Capitol Hill's burgeoning 10th and Pike "entertainment district." It sounds like CBGB, Manhattan's landmark punk-rock dive that was demolished late last year. Amidst the convivial jangle of dinner sounds and conversation at Quinn's, the music — Blondie, Talking Heads, the Ramones — is always loud enough to discern above the din.

When owners Scott and Heather Staples opened Quinn's in October, they wanted music to be an integral part of the dining experience. Quinn's would be set apart from Restaurant Zoë, their well-regarded first venture in Belltown, by its raucous soundtrack, a nod to Pike Street's rock 'n' roll swagger. Rather than relying on their own CD collection or employees' iPods, they went to a professional. Justin A. Edgerton, a self-described "music stylist," ran with the Staples' inspiration — CBGB — and developed a customized, 800-song playlist. His goal: Enhance the restaurant's ambience and, in turn, the overall dining experience.

"He had this crystal vision and just went for it," Scott Staples recalls. "Some people come in and sit down, and when they realize what's on, they get up and patiently walk up to the front and say, 'How can I eat dinner listening to music like this? This is not dinner music.' [But] We've had way more compliments than people responding to it negatively."

The Staples "spend a lot of time trying to make everything consistent, with their food, the way they manage their staff, the way they serve the customers," Edgerton says. "If they have a regular florist, and they get their ingredients from a regular distributor, why shouldn't the music be consistent, too?"

The time for mood music

In his part-time trade as a music stylist, Edgerton spends hours poring over music new and old, popular and obscure. The idea is to spike a few recognizable songs in between 10 or so lesser-knowns; diners perk up to familiar favorites but aren't distracted by a cavalcade of hits. (The current Quinn's soundtrack features indie acts such as the Gossip, M. Ward and Apostle of Hustle, along with early-'80s art-punk icons.) Each day of the week is assigned its own mix, and the mood changes hour by hour.

"At 5 o'clock, when we're not so busy or full, [we] want things a little bit more easy-listening," Staples says. "It's progressive. From 5-9 it just builds. Then there's the 9 to 10 o'clock time zone of transition to a definite uptempo. We have a definite late-night thing going on for sure," but it tones down toward closing time, when the crowd thins.

"Eating at a restaurant is a time for people to get away from their everyday lives," Edgerton says. "I don't want people to hear a song and think, 'This is the same song that annoys me on the radio every day when I commute to work.' "

He's got the music in him

Edgerton is the ideal guy for the job he developed from the ground up, starting in 2000, when he waited tables at Zoë and played his own CDs there. The 34-year-old Boise native, who's lived in the same building on First Hill for nine years, has a brain that functions like a database: He can recall almost every song he's ever listened to and cross-reference similar styles and artists on the fly. He's a lifelong listener with an extremely open mind and a whopping music collection (more than 4,000 CDs and records, plus 300 gigs — or 70,000 songs — on various hard drives and iPods). Just as important, he's worked in the restaurant business as a server for 18 years. Edgerton has internalized the pace of a good meal as well as the arc of a restaurant's entire night.

Along with Zoë, Quinn's and Ballard's Volterra — which romances diners with a "more organic, more world" sound — Edgerton says he has developed playlists for several Seattle-based international corporations (the names of which he's contractually unable to divulge) as well as one exclusive, intimate theme party hosted by a well-to-do Seattle celebrity (ditto). He also consults with event planners and caterers; his pitch process involves an iPod with an attached speaker, so he can offer suggestions or dial in songs based on his clients' descriptions. Each client gets his own unique playlist, kind of like a personalized mixtape; that list is then updated with 100 or so new songs every month. He's never advertised or solicited; all his business comes from positive word-of-mouth.

"I'll sit down with the client and take notes on the specs and parameters — what's your space like, what are your hours, so on." Edgerton says. "Not everyone can express what they might need, so if they don't have that language, listening to the iPod through a speaker helps conceptualize it. It acts as a tool to say, 'This is what neo-soul sounds like, this is Bossa Nova, this is '60s French pop.' "

It's a service custom-designed for busy restaurateurs. Staples explains, "Between opening my own business and having kids all at the same time, I haven't been able to keep up with music except for Justin. He keeps me up to date. If I had a professional shopper — a professional music shopper — it would be him."

One recent weekend evening, Quinn's brimmed with the well-dressed, well-heeled 30-somethings that are changing the formerly gritty, underfed face of Pike/Pine. They dined on soft-boiled duck eggs, rabbit pâté and braised oxtails as the Rapture's disco-inflected dance rock and the Raveonettes' sultry indie-noir set the tempo of the scene. The music couldn't have better suited the setting: a chic place to eat and drink that looks like young wealth and sounds like rock 'n' roll.

Jonathan Zwickel: zwickelicious@gmail.com