Last reviewed: 5 October 2022

14.1 million people or 22 per cent of the UK population has a disability. Disabled people have an estimated spending power of £274 bn, much of which will be spent on eating and drinking out.

Here are some quick tips on how to attract disabled customers to your café and restaurant and to keep them (and their friends and family) coming back. 41 per cent of disabled people in BDF research said their first instinct was to go back to somewhere they had been before and 48 per cent said they read reviews.

Top tips

• Welcome customers online first. Most people will try to check you out online. Ensure your websites and apps are accessible. This means thinking about how someone with sight loss or a disability that affects their reading might access it. Can screen reader software access the website or app? Have you made sure text is large enough and has a good colour contrast? Can users contact you for alternative formats? Don’t use PDFs for sample menus. Screen readers often can’t read them. See our resource ‘How to make your website more accessible’ in this Toolkit for more information.
• Show pictures and provide written information online. You want to showcase the food and drink – but many disabled visitors want to know whether they can walk around and use the facilities. Make sure there are pictures of the entrance, any steps or stairs, the seats, and toilets. If you have step-free access, tell your customers about it. Use words as well as pictures and make sure the pictures are described in alt text – for example, “picture of step-free access and wide entrance way”.
• Food and drink – be ready to tell people the ingredients (not just common allergens) on menus because some people have very restricted diets. Try to be flexible about changes to menu items.
• Reading the menu. Provide sample menus online if you can (but not PDFs). If you have printed menus or boards avoid fancy, difficult to read or tiny fonts and make the contrast is as good as you can – black on white or blue on yellow is good. QR codes mean that people can use their smartphone to read out the menu or simply offer to read the menu out loud. If you see people moving the menu further away or using smartphone torches, the font is likely to be too small or the lighting too low.
• Keep the noise down. You don’t want to kill the atmosphere but pumping music, coffee machines, clattering crockery and hard surfaces put off people with hearing loss who cannot filter out background noise, and people with neurodiverse conditions like autism who get overwhelmed – and many other customers.
• Lighting levels and signs. Dark and cosy might be delightful but not if people can’t read the menu or fear falling down the stairs. Provide adequate light for your customers and clear, easy to read signs for toilets and entrances.
• You might already provide highchairs for little ones. Try to have a variety of chair heights and some with arms that people can use to help themselves up. Cushions can be very welcome as well. See Tip 5 on dampening noise and Tip 1 – tell and show customers the furnishings in your space.
• Toilets – if you have an accessible toilet then tell your customers online that it’s there for them. And make sure it is clear of clutter and easy to get to. No one wants to have people or stuff moved out of the way when they need to go! If you don’t have an accessible toilet, could you share one with a nearby business?
• Animals – you must allow assistance animals such as guide dogs into your premise but why not actively welcome them? Provide a dog bowl and pictures online of how you welcome well-behaved and trained assistance animals.
• Customer service – being friendly, open, and asking “how can I help?”. You don’t need to be an expert on disability. You should already be an expert on customer service and that’s all you need to welcome disabled customers.

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