16 restaurants in Bengaluru sign the accessibility pledge under #RampMyCity campaign

In December 2017, Bengaluru-based entrepreneur Prateek Khandelwal kickstarted the #RampMyCity campaign on social media. His aim was to bring together restaurant owners in the city, their staffers and disabled people to highlight the importance of making restaurants accessible.

Now, over 16 restaurants across Bengaluru have become disabled-friendly, thanks to Khandelwal’s efforts.

This has Khandelwal over 10 months and the journey has been far from a cakewalk. Most restaurant owners were initially ignorant of the idea.

I have been in talks with restaurant owners for the past six months. Once we got the wheelchair ramps ready, my next job was to sensitize restaurant staff about inclusivity. So I launched the grooming session #IBreakTheBarrier where restaurant staffs are given a detailed insight on how to reach out to disabled customers. – Prateek Khandelwal, Founder, #RampMyCity

Farzi Cafe in UB City, Big Brewsky at Sarjapur Road, Ebony at MG Road, were among those who were the first to respond. Now, Social in Sarjapur Road, Church Street and Koramangala, Foxtrot in Koramangala, Byg Brewskii in Hennur and Sarjapur Road, are the newer ones to take the pledge. In most of these restaurants, washrooms have also been made accessible with wheelchair ramps.

Brijesh K Chandran, Operations Manager at Kaze, which is among the recent ones to sign up, has years of experience in hotel management and points out that all star hotels are now accessible.

“When it comes to restaurants, we miss out on accessibility features. When Prateek spoke about the idea, we were all in for it. After we installed wheelchair ramps, we had a lady customer on a wheelchair. She was extremely happy to see the features that we introduced. She was seated at the fine dining space which was also accessible”, says Chandran.

Next on Prateek’s agenda is to make the common man’s eateries disabled-friendly. So far, he has been looking at the high end restaurants.

So, with a holiday weekend coming up, do check out these new facilities. And the weather is awesome too!

ALSO READ: Check out some cool, accessible places to hang out this weekend in Bengaluru

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