The Blindside of Ally

Jalishia McNeil (Accessible Date)

I decided to take a look into the blind side just to see the challenges that some disabled people face. My friend has recently lost her eyesight due to some poison ivy. It has been really tough for her so I decided to take her out to Applebee's so that she can just relax a little and have a great time out eating and talking. 

I noticed that they didn't have good access at entering or leaving the restaurant for someone that is blind. They should really invest in some automatic sensor doors for disabled people who are in the wheelchair or even on crutches.

 They had great accessibility within the entire restaurant, which is very good I think. The restaurant wasn't crowded at all and I'm guessing it was because it was a week day and around 10:00pm. We had a lot of privacy because we went at night and during a week day. If it had been during the weekend then the restaurant would've been extremely crowded and we wouldn't have been able to have as much privacy as we did. The restaurant is normally very sociable because it's a sports bar as well with 10 flat screen TV’s inside. There was a little activity going on in the restaurant due to the music box they have. The music was really loud and some of the people were dancing and singing.

I find it very interesting that she hears like I see. She told me that it gets difficult at times but she knows that she has to get through this on her own because there will come a time when she’s going to be alone and she have to figure out how to do things. While we were being seated I noticed that some of the people at the bar were staring at us because I was holding her hand and maybe because she had on shades. I had to hold her hand to guide her way up the step in the restaurant and of course I didn't want her to fall. She tends to wear shades all the time now because of the coloration of her eyes.

I noticed here on the sign that my friend wouldn't be able to tell if she was going in the men's restroom or the women's because they don't have it embedded in the sign. I was very disturbed by this because you have to think of the disabled when making decisions for the use of the public.

I had to read the menu to her and explain what was in the food because she's allergic to cheese. We ordered the 2 for 20 and she decided she wants to order sirloin with loaded mashed potatoes and of course we had to take off the cheese off of the potatoes. Overall this experience was great and it made me think about things that I normally wouldn't think of. There was a lot of good things that came out of the experience and not so much bad.