It’s Friday night and it’s been a long week. Some friends are meeting up for dinner and invited you to join. Without knowing or caring where, you accept the invite. You’re excited to kick back and relax. You get ready to go and you text a friend asking where they are meeting. The friend responds with the name of a popular restaurant in town. Suddenly, you cringe and rethink your decision to go out. The place they chose is definitely a really cool and fun place; however, accessibility is less than ideal. Scenarios like this one play out frequently for people with physical limitations. Although most restaurants nowadays are “accessible” according to regulations, it doesn’t mean that they are totally accessible. Again, the word “accessible” is often loosely used and widely varies when talking about restaurants.

Simply put, I don’t leave my apartment very often. In fact, I have one scheduled outing per week and that’s to the grocery store. Between cares and transportation, it’s just not feasible for me to get out more. That said, thanks to my family, I do get to go to restaurants pretty frequently when I’m with them. Everything from getting in the door to eating takes some extra consideration. Most restaurants don’t have power doors In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen one that does) and many have a two door entrance which makes it very difficult for people with mobility issues to get in and out. Most of the time depending on the entrance two additional people are needed to hold the doors because it’s usually too tight for the same person to hold both doors open. Even with two people helping hold the doors, it can sometimes be tight because the doors don’t open wide enough to get a wheelchair through without running over people’s toes. It’s often a game trying to get and out of places.

Once in the restaurant, depending on how it’s setup and how crowded it is, it’s often a maze trying to get through and finding a place to sit where your equipment (wheelchair in my case) isn’t in the way of the wait staff or other customers. Some restaurant layouts are better than others. Some have nice wide Isles where there’s a nice amount of room between the tables; some are so narrow and jammed together that I literally get my wheelchair stuff stuck. People are usually pretty nice about moving chairs in or getting up so I can get through, but sometimes it’s embarrassing when a big group has to move When the hostess seats us, my parents usually kind of say what would work best.    If I was with friends, they would not know to do that.

Table heights vary from place to place as well. In bars, the bar itself is usually way too high, but I have seen and been in some with a wheelchair counter.  Usually none of the tables are at a level, where I can pull up and get my joystick underneath it, so I end up sideways on an end, which usually blocks at least one walkway.

In my personal case, I also have to position myself next to a caregiver so that they are able to feed me.  This means I usually am on an end or blocking some pathway for wait staff or customers.

When it comes time to order, wait staff frequently believe that I am not capable of ordering.  They either pass by me and ask my caretaker what I would like, or raise their voice two octaves and talk to me as if I were a two year old.  It makes me laugh when I remember one time, when the wait staff brought me crayons and a placemat to color.  Another thing that happens, is that I get very strange looks if I order a drink or cocktail.  People need to remember that just because we have disabilities, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy what everyone does, and most of us are able to make choices based on our own preferences.

This is where self-advocacy comes in.  Myself and others will try to assert ourselves to help educate the public on what we ARE able to do, and not focus on what we are not capable of.  That said, I love and intend to keep on going out to eat with friends and family whenever I can.

***The views expressed here are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of InControl Wisconsin, the Network or any of our sponsors.