Restaurant Accessibility: 9 Steps to More Guests & Revenue

One in six people lives with some form of disability — and they rarely visit alone.

Yet only 13% of this group say hospitality and leisure businesses are the most accessible sector to visit, and 75% say they've avoided a venue at some point because of poor accessibility or clumsy service. Meanwhile, the "purple pound" — the combined spending power of households with a disability — is estimated at roughly €2.25 trillion worldwide. Most restaurants leave this market on the table unintentionally, not out of unwillingness, but because nobody ever gave them a concrete plan. This article gives you that plan: 9 concrete, largely affordable measures to make your restaurant accessible for guests with a physical, visual, hearing or other disability:

1. Physical access — thresholds, door width and a properly sloped ramp.
2. Accessible restrooms — the right dimensions and a door that opens outward.
3. Tables, chairs and room to move — enough clear space to pull up to a table with ease.
4. A readable menu — large, high-contrast and available in extra formats on request.
5. An accessible website and booking system — mandatory under the European Accessibility Act.
6. A trained team — hospitable and at ease around disability, without awkwardness.
7. The legal framework around service dogs — know it and apply it correctly.
8. Sensory accessibility — light, sound and contrast for guests who are hard of hearing or visually impaired.
9. Making accessibility visible — applying for the label and promoting it as a competitive edge.

Why accessibility is worth real money, not just goodwill

In the United Kingdom alone, the spending power of households with at least one person with a disability is estimated at around £274 billion a year. Guests with a disability spend an average of roughly £78 a month on hospitality and leisure — money that can just as easily go to the restaurant down the street if it happens to be a little more accessible. Add to that the fact that someone who has a good experience rarely comes alone: partners, family, friends and carers come along too. So a single accessible improvement rarely reaches just one guest — it reaches an entire party.

More than half of people with a disability say better-trained staff would encourage them to eat out more often. That's good news: the biggest barrier is often not bricks and mortar, but a lack of awareness among the team. And that's exactly where you, as a restaurant owner, can make a difference today — without any renovation at all.

9 steps to a more accessible restaurant

1. Physical access: thresholds, doors and ramps

The first barrier is often the literal threshold. A five-centimetre kerb you'd never notice yourself is a wall to a wheelchair user. Pay attention to:

• Door width: allow at least 85 cm of clear passage, preferably 90 cm, so a wheelchair or walker can get through without scraping the sides.
• Ramps: a ramp shouldn't be steeper than a ratio of roughly 1 to 12 — every 12 cm of length should offset no more than 1 cm of height difference. A steeper ramp is unusable, or even dangerous, for many wheelchair users.
• Revolving doors: if your main entrance is a revolving door, provide an alternative entrance — unless the revolving door itself is suitable for people with disabilities.
• Portable ramps: a simple, movable rubber or aluminium ramp (starting from a few hundred euros) solves ninety percent of threshold problems without any construction work.

These are also exactly the details covered by permit rules for new builds or renovations: accessibility is no longer an optional extra, but part of the building application itself.

2. Accessible restrooms

An accessible restroom is the deciding factor for many guests: without a usable toilet, a visit of a few hours is simply off the table. Flemish accessibility standards require at least one accessible toilet per restroom block, with a space of at least 1.65 by 2.20 metres — large enough for a wheelchair to turn fully around. A few practical details that often get overlooked:

• The door of the accessible toilet must open outward, not inward — otherwise someone who has fallen blocks their own rescue.
• Leave part of the turning circle free under the sink, so a wheelchair's footrests fit underneath.
• Grab bars next to the toilet are cheap and make the difference between independence and needing help.

3. Tables, chairs and room to move

Even with an accessible entrance, a visit stalls if there's nowhere to actually pull up to a table. Make sure at least a few tables have:

• Clear space on at least one side of roughly 80 cm, so a wheelchair can pull up without having to move tables.
• Movable chairs instead of fixed benches, so you can make room quickly.
• A standard table height of around 75 cm with enough legroom underneath — a thick apron or a heavy central table leg makes a table unusable for a wheelchair user.
• An obstacle-free path between entrance, restroom and table — no loose cables, planters or menu boards in the aisle.

Think this through for your terrace too: loose gravel, high thresholds to the outside, or tables placed too close together can make an otherwise perfectly accessible restaurant inaccessible the moment the weather turns nice.

4. A menu everyone can read

A menu in small, low-contrast type on glossy paper is unreadable for guests with impaired vision — and they rarely ask for help out loud. A few low-effort fixes:

• Use a font size of at least 14 points and strong contrast (dark text on a light, non-glossy background).
• Offer a large-print copy on request, or a digital version that opens with a screen reader.
• A QR menu is actually more convenient for some guests (thanks to their phone's read-aloud function), and an extra barrier for others — so always offer a physical alternative too.
• Train staff to be able to read the menu aloud without the guest having to ask.

This ties directly into how you already account for allergies and dietary requirements on the menu: clarity and readability serve both groups of guests at once.

5. A website and booking system that works for everyone

Accessibility doesn't stop at the front door. Since 28 June 2025, the European Accessibility Act has required digital accessibility for new services offered in the EU — including restaurant websites, online bookings and self-service kiosks. In concrete terms, this means:

• Your website must be usable with a screen reader, have sufficient contrast, and be navigable using the keyboard alone.
• Your online booking system must give understandable error messages and not rely on mouse or touch input alone.
• A self-service kiosk must be mounted at a reachable height, offer audio support, and not rely on touch alone.

Micro-enterprises with fewer than 10 employees are exempt from certain obligations, but most accessibility improvements — a larger font, higher contrast, clear buttons — improve usability for all visitors, regardless of the exemption.

6. Train your team: hospitable without awkwardness

The biggest barrier is often not the building, but the team's behaviour. Awkwardness — speaking too loudly to a blind guest, addressing the companion instead of the guest themselves, shooing away a service dog — does more damage than a missing ramp. Build this into your staff training:

• Always address the guest directly, not their companion or partner.
• Simply ask, "How can I help you?" instead of assuming what someone needs.
• Offer to guide someone to their table or the restroom, but never insist.
• Learn what a service dog is and isn't allowed to do (see step 7) and train this explicitly — it's the most common refusal mistake.

This is essentially an extension of your existing customer service approach: the same genuine attention, applied to a group of guests who, more often than average, expect a poor experience — and are all the more grateful when that expectation is proven wrong.

7. Service dogs: know the legal framework

This is one of the most underestimated legal risks in hospitality. You're generally allowed to refuse pets in your dining area — that's your choice. But a recognised service dog (a guide dog or other certified assistance dog) has a legal right of access, in all three Belgian regions, to any place where food is served, including restaurants, sandwich shops and cafés. The dog isn't allowed past the kitchen or food-production area, but refusing it in the dining room is a punishable offence. Important to know:

• You may not charge any extra costs for the presence of a service dog.
• The right also applies to instructors accompanying a dog in training.
• Refuse anyway, and you risk a fine — the exact amount varies by region, but it's an offence in every region.

Communicate this rule proactively to your team: most refusals happen not out of malice, but out of ignorance about the exception to the general no-pets rule.

8. Sensory accessibility: light, sound and contrast

Not every disability is visible, or about mobility. For guests who are hard of hearing or visually impaired, light and sound determine whether a visit is pleasant — or simply impossible:

• A dining room that's too noisy makes lip-reading and using hearing aids impossible. Work on your restaurant's acoustics with sound-absorbing materials, so conversations don't have to be shouted.
• Too little light, or light that's too harsh and flickering, makes it harder to see faces and gestures. Choose even, warm lighting without harsh contrasts between the table and its surroundings.
• Create visual contrast between floor, walls, thresholds and furniture — an entirely flat colour scheme makes changes in height invisible to guests with impaired vision.
• Have staff ask about specific preferences when taking a booking (a quiet corner, a table by the window for extra light), so you can seat guests proactively instead of improvising on arrival.

9. Make accessibility visible: the label and your marketing

Accessibility nobody knows about doesn't attract anyone either. In Flanders, you can request a free accessibility assessment from Tourism Flanders, which results in an A or A+ label once your venue meets the criteria. Once you have that label (or have put together a clear accessibility fact sheet yourself), communicate it actively:

• Mention accessibility information explicitly in your Google Business Profile (wheelchair-accessible entrance, restroom, parking).
• Specifically ask guests with disabilities for a review — these reviews carry a lot of weight for other guests from the same group who want to check out a venue in advance.
• Build it into your general marketing too: a venue that's visibly inclusive stands out in a market where barely 13% of this group experiences hospitality as accessible.

Communicating accessibility isn't charity — it's exactly like mentioning any other strong selling point of your restaurant. Guests who have certainty in advance will book; guests who have to gamble will choose the certainty of a competitor instead.

Common mistakes that undermine accessibility

• Installing a ramp that's technically there, but too steep to use independently.
• Using the accessible toilet as storage space for crates and cleaning supplies.
• Addressing the companion instead of the guest themselves.
• Refusing a service dog out of ignorance of the legal exception.
• Only thinking about accessibility during a renovation, instead of building it structurally into staff training.
• Actually having accessible facilities, but never mentioning them anywhere — so guests stay away as a precaution.

Conclusion: accessibility as a competitive advantage

Building an accessible restaurant isn't a matter of one big, expensive renovation. It's a series of small, often inexpensive decisions: a portable ramp, a trained team, a larger-print menu, accurate knowledge about service dogs. Start with the free and low-cost steps in this article, and plan the bigger structural work for your next renovation or permit application.

The reward is a multi-billion-euro market your competitors are largely leaving on the table: guests with disabilities who, once made to feel welcome, rarely come back alone — and tell everyone about it.