"Restaurant crowds are mostly listeners, which tends to open up your options and genre choices. Hard to keep a dance floor packed going straight from a Bob Marley tune to an old Elvis song, but perfectly acceptable for a seated audience!"

This is 95% of my playing, and am happier about my normal playlists. I can see from the above responses, that a whole different mindset is necessary with a passive audience and dances.

I would like thoughts on mixing in vocals with instrumentals at dinners at a suitable, non invasive volume and/or tempo.
To provide ambience for a dinner party, involves taking more of a back seat, and allow for conversation, but lyrics can be so important.