Accessibility Service Protocol: Standard Practices for Disabled Guests in Restaurants

A waterfront fish restaurant in Üsküdar, Istanbul opened in 2025 and within its first year was averaging 18 weekly wheelchair-user reservations. The reason was not luck — it was a written accessibility service protocol.

What the 2020 Standard Requires

Turkey's Directorate General for Disabled and Elderly Services 2020 accessibility standard requires commercial venues to offer at least 20% of seats as wheelchair-compatible — 75 cm table height, 80 cm passage width. Restrooms need a 150 cm turning radius and knee clearance under the sink.

Menu accessibility matters too: Braille or audio alternatives for blind guests, written ordering channels for deaf guests. The goal is "accessible service," not just a ramp.

The Üsküdar Pilot: A Three-Layer Solution

The Üsküdar restaurant ran three layers in parallel:

1) For blind guests, a printed Braille menu at the door plus a screen-reader-friendly HTML version of the QR menu — iOS VoiceOver reads every product aloud when the camera scans the QR.
2) For deaf guests, a tablet-based written order channel — a "call waiter" button and chat window forwards messages directly to the kitchen.
3) For wheelchair users, two permanent 73 cm tables by the window — priority view, not isolation.

Staff Role: Disability Awareness Training

The standard isn't only equipment — staff behavior is part of compliance. The restaurant ran a 4-hour onboarding: ask before touching a wheelchair, guide a blind guest by the forearm rather than the shoulder, face deaf guests directly and avoid masks that hide lip movement. The training is repeated monthly.

Outcome: the word "accessible" appeared 47 times in TripAdvisor reviews over 90 days, and the venue was listed among "Istanbul's 10 most inclusive restaurants."

FAQ

Is a printed Braille menu expensive? A single embossed page runs 25-40 TL; a 10-page menu 300-500 TL. QR-based audio is nearly free.

Does a QR menu support screen readers automatically? No — semantic HTML (alt, aria-label) is required. thMenu ships with it by default.

Is staff certification mandatory? No legal requirement, but documenting approved courses scores points in municipal inspections.

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