Eatsa, a concept that has made waves with its highly automated ordering and meal pickup operations, is being sued by a disability group that alleges the highly visual setup can’t be easily used by the blind.
The plaintiffs are the American Council for the Blind and Michael Godino, a blind man, who said he was unable to order and collect his food at one of Eatsa’s New York locations.
At Eatsa, customers order through touchscreen kiosks or their phone and pick up their meal via cubby holes. Other than the kitchen staff who prepare the food, the only employee at Eatsa is a single front-of-house attendant.
The filed complaint states that “Eatsa has ignored the needs of thousands of potential blind customers.” And since the ordering systems “rely on exclusively visual displays and do not provide any form of audio output or tactile input, Eatsa’s design is entirely inaccessible to blind customers.”
Blind customers can ask the attendant for assistance, but the complaint argues that this still denies the blind from independently ordering.
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