Complete Summary of The Journal Record Article on Wheeling Around Town The Journal Record published an article today about WheelingAroundTown and our Report on OKC Restaurant accessibility. The article is dated July 29, 2013, and was written by Brian Brus. The article in entitled ”Local restaurants average B- for accessibility” and there is a picture of me (Paul D. Cardin) sitting outside of Rococo’s Northpark restaurant, which is given a B in our Report. The first paragraph sets the tone: Oklahoma City’s restaurants have some serious accessibility problems according to our Report. The article goes on to describe our A to F grading scale and mentions two restaurants that achieved A+ grades: PhoNomenal Vietnamese restaurant and Mahogany Steakhouse. Later in the article there is an explanation of our broad areas of review (Parking, Ramp and Front Door, Inside Navigation, and Restroom Accessibility and our weighting of 25% to each area. The article goes on to quote me: “It’s pretty common, actually. We can go out to a restaurant for dinner and even call ahead to ask if they’re wheelchair-friendly, and they’ll say yes. But once you arrive, you find out that it’s not all that friendly after all.” My disability is mentioned briefly and the article notes that before I ended up in the wheelchair, I, too, took accessibility issues for granted. Maneuvering around a restaurant is just harder in a wheelchair. The article mentions one of my favorite reviews, about reaching for toilet paper that was out of reach: “I guess that restaurant expected you to load up on paper before getting situated. I don’t know. It’s the sort of thing that can ruin an entire night out for someone. The number one gripe for someone in a wheelchair is restroom access. … Until you’re actually in a chair, you’re not going to see the same difficulties to getting around.” The article notes that our business is website services (Wheat Communications LLC – wheatcom) and that WheelingAroundTown was created as a community service. And even though we are sending copies of the Report to various lawmakers, we have no political agenda to push. Urbanspoon gets a nod for providing a list of much talked about restaurants, which we use to find restaurants to review. If people are talking about a certain restaurant, then we need to visit it. And because Urbanspoon considers our reviews to be blogs, we get hyperlinks back to our website from the Urbanspoon listings. We are still the #3 OKC blog on Urbanspoon. Good reporter that he is, Mr. Brus contacted a couple of the restaurants that got low grades in our Report: Saturn Grill on Memorial and Mutt’s Amazing Dogs on 23rd. The Saturn Grill has its Disabled Parking spot directly on the access ramp from the parking lot to the sidewalk. The General Manager of Saturn Grill disclaimed responsibility and threw it back on the landlord. Mutt’s has major parking and restroom problems. Mutt’s General Manager, unlike the Saturn Grill GM, expressed embarrassment and pledged improvements. (We will follow up on this.) Finally, the article notes that the ADA full compliance deadline has passed and there are few exceptions. If you are a subscriber to the Journal Record, you can read the full article at the link below:
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 19:16:54 +0000
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