OTTAWA — Blind dining has arrived in Ottawa with the opening of Dark Fork in the Byward Market, allowing restaurant-goers the chance not only to sample the establishment’s extensive menu but also to experience a taste of life as a visually impaired person.
Dark Fork has a lighted lounge area where restaurant-goers can view the menu. However, the restaurant then “goes dark” for patrons as they’re ushered into a dining area where cell phones and other sources of artificial light are forbidden. For individuals with typical vision, eating in the dark is a foreign concept, but for people who are blind, sitting down to meals in near or total darkness is an everyday routine. The darkness of the restaurant transforms a prime dining experience into an unrivaled tactile and sensory adventure, allowing sighted people to experience life without vision, along with a correspondingly heightened sense of taste and touch.
In another role-reversal unprecedented for any Ottawa restaurant, all Dark Fork’s servers are visually impaired. While patrons are unable to see the table or anything else around them, the servers use their lived experience of blindness to expertly wait on tables. A guide server explains where patrons can find everything on their table and access the lighted bathrooms —with the assistance of their visually impaired guide.
Dark Fork is proud to announce that its wait staff will primarily consist of visually impaired Canadians. This segment of the population experiences an unemployment rate of 14.5 per cent, more than twice the national average. The restaurant recruits its staff through Canadian National Institute of the Blind.
Moe Alameddine, owner of Dark Fork, founded the first blind-dining restaurant in Canada in 2006. Since then, these restaurants have employed more than 100 people who are blind.
