Dining out should be accessible for everyone
On the physical barriers to dining out, Tupperware's dwindling sales in Aotearoa and kimbap in central Auckland.
Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter produced in partnership with Boring Oat Milk. Written by me, Charlotte Muru-Lanning. It’s lovely to have you here!
Disability is a term with many meanings. Around 24% of New Zealand’s population has some form of disability, whether that be through a physical, sensory, learning, mental health or other impairment.
Last month, the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill was presented to parliament, establishing a new legislative framework to address systemic accessibility barriers preventing disabled people, tāngata whaikaha and their whānau, and others from living independently and participating in all areas of life.
Reflecting on the dining-out landscape in this country, it quickly becomes clear that the terrain is rugged, rocky and inaccessible for some of us and that’s largely due to inconsiderate design.
Accessibility barriers are by no means limited to restaurants, cafes and bars, but these spaces act as useful microcosms to understand the broader impact of inaccessible design and the diversity of access needs that require accommodating in every part of society. While people don’t choose to have access needs, there’s a choice made in how we provide spaces to people.
Below, a bunch of diners with different access needs from around the country share thoughts on their experiences with accessibility when dining out, and what can be done to break down barriers.
Juliana Carvalho is a Tauranga-based disability activist: Talk to the person with a disability, instead of just the person with them. As a wheelchair user, sometimes you go to places, and they just have those tables that are really high, bar style, and no other options. It can be really uncomfortable. The other thing would be the space between the tables. If they’re too narrow, whenever you go to the bar, or to the bathroom, you need to be displacing other guests. At restaurants where you serve yourself, usually, it’s pretty high, so it's quite hard. One thing that is really important for me is if there is an accessible car park nearby. If I'm going to go out for dinner, those are the kinds of things that I need to think about.
Wellington-based Loren Savage was born with achondroplasia: I really enjoy dining out, both the having an excuse not to cook and the social aspect that comes with it. However, it does come with challenges sometimes. It can be annoying when tables are fixed to the ground because I often can't shuffle a chair in to move closer. The biggest challenge I have is around the accessibility of the bathrooms, either being able to reach the tap, the hand towels, the mirrors. When choosing places to dine out with my friends who have different access needs to me, we are limited by where we can go. It’s resulted in has having the usual ‘go to’, rather than risk trying other places. I have experienced an improvement in people’s attitudes and understandings towards accessibility, and I'm more likely to go back to somewhere that prioritises accessibility. I’d like to encourage the hospitality sector, to be really upfront and honest about their accessibility.
Beth Noble is a Wellington-based PhD student who is autistic: Restaurants and cafes can sometimes be quite loud places. A lot of that is down to how they're laid out, or how close all the tables are to each other. Often speakers are turned up really loud, and so everyone's talking slightly louder and it all just ramps up. I find it quite overwhelming. The other one comes down to food itself, which is quite interesting. So I have quite a few sensory sensitivities and I'm particularly fussy around food. For me, what's really helpful is a restaurant having their menu on the internet, so I can look at it before I go. That's really important for me to know, is there going to be something that I can eat and a menu that actually is comprehensive. Being flexible around letting people make edits to the food that they want to eat is really important too.
Julie Woods is a Dunedin-based professional speaker and writer who has been blind for 24 years: When you're blind and go into a café, counter food is a real challenge. Even if there are signs on the food, they are not accessible to most blind people. I asked someone behind the counter in a Dunedin café the other day what slices they had and she replied “there are signs on all of them!” It’s really helpful if the staff are able to take the time to find out what the blind person is interested in eating and then quickly run through what is available. Access is an attitude, choose a good one!
Amy Hogan is an Auckland-based researcher with Cerebral Palsy: For me the one thing that a restaurant can do is to ensure a clear pathway in the restaurant between the tables, the counter, and the payment kiosk. You can be self conscious constantly needing to push chairs away.
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Weekly bites
Yesterday, the government confirmed their plans to force supermarkets to open up wholesale access to rivals, with the threat of further regulatory measures if they don’t. In today’s Bulletin, Anna Rawhiti-Connell takes a look at what the announcement will actually mean for grocery prices, and whether we might need to rethink our food system more broadly.
An affordable, piping-hot bundle of kai that delivers on comfort, fish and chips has always been considered a democratic meal in New Zealand. Could that be set to change though? In the latest consumer price index, the cost of oil, fats, vegetables and fish. had shot up, and that along with supply-chain issues is having a massive impact on little fish and chip shops. I asked the owners of some of my favourites around Aotearoa where they’re feeling the pinch and what they’re doing to adapt. “We talk about ‘cheap as chips’,” said fish and chip owner Daniel Marsic, “but that saying is starting to fade out of existence.”
Their festive coloured plastic boxes are omnipresent in fridges and chaotic kitchen drawers around the country. But despite their seeming pervasiveness, Tupperware’s sales, built on the face-to-face party plan model, have unsurprisingly dwindled in the pandemic. Stuff reported this morning that UOL, the exclusive importer of Tupperware in New Zealand will be closing its business on October 30. Meaning that the Tupperware party is officially over in Aotearoa. I recommend this 2014 read from Digest magazine on how Tupperware became a symbol – rightly or wrongly – for female independence.
I remember reading somewhere at some point in my life that if you found a copy of New Zealand food writer and restaurateur Lois Daish’s indomitable 1993 cookbook Dinner at Home, you should immediately buy it. Last week I found a copy on Trade Me and it’s now sitting happily in my bookshelf. With appealing chapter titles like Potato Cakes Forever, The Many Moods of a Chicken Sauté or The Bright Colours of a Meal-sized Salad – I’m charmed.
What’s the shape of your future?
Created by our friends at Stuff, NowNext is a survey designed to better understand how younger New Zealanders feel about where Aotearoa is going. The survey looks at everything from our employment market and financial literacy to health, travel and the climate. It should only take about five minutes, and everyone who takes part will go in the draw to win one of 20 $100 Prezzy Cards. Learn more and get started here.
A meal a week
Before my week became enveloped by a cold and mountains of tissues, I had a weekend of eating really good food. That’s held me in good stead for the week. Perhaps the best of these food moments was (as is often the case) the most unembellished and impromptu of meals. That was a 2.45pm Saturday snack of a spicy pork kimbap from the excellent Korean snack spot Dosirock and an iced white coffee from Rumours enjoyed in the sun on a wooden bench on O’Connell Street in central Auckland. I feel a constant compulsion to prove that inner-city Auckland is actually becoming more vibrant and undeserving of the gloom-ridden adjectives usually associated with it. Enjoying my afternoon snacks bought nearby, among the bustle of groups of Kpop dancers cheering and laughing – I think I’ve proved it to myself at least.
Talk next week!
Hei kōnā mai, Charlotte
