How Accessible is COMO? By, Kathleen McTearnen and Zachary Suchman

Throughout Downtown Columbia there plenty of places that are

accessible and there are many that aren't. For our date we stayed in a smaller 

walking distance for convenience of the date goers. Our three stops included Shakespeare's Pizza for 

dinner and drinks, The Missouri Theater for some live entertainment followed by a lovely end to the 

evening stay at the Tiger Hotel for some private time. 

Stop 1 (Shakespeare's Pizza)

When arriving to Shakespeare's we noticed that it is located right on the corner of the road so there is 

lip on the corner of the street basically leading up to the entrance of the restaurant. Across the street 

there is a handicap parking space that is also located right near a corner there a lip is provided. This 

makes better access to the parking space and the restaurant in order to help add convenience for our

date and so we were able to have the  capability to go to places easier in that vicinity.

When we entered Shakespeare's we noticed both good and not so good ways

Shakespeare's had made accommodations for wheelchair users. 

The pizza counter was not accessible due to the height of the counter where they place the finished 

pizzas, a wheelchair user would not be able to reach the pan or the box of pizza so our date would

have to get the pizza when it was ready due to not being able to reach since the height of the counter

was so tall. However, there are stairs and the hallways are pretty wide open to be

 able to roll a wheelchair thru comfortably. Another positive of Shakespeare's

was that the tables are a good height that a wheelchair would be able to roll 

right up and sit comfortably with no problems of the table being too low or too high for the 

individual. A final negative of the restaurant was the bar area was too high. The counter for the bar 

was way too high for a wheelchair user to sit with their date and drink comfortably so we had to

order our drinks and sit back at a table which worked out just fine because we were enjoying each

other's company wherever we sat. We then moved onto our second stop on the date.

Stop 2 (The Missouri Theater)

The Missouri Theater is just up one block from Shakespeare's Pizza so we figured that 

a little live entertainment after a delicious pizza and beer would be a great place

to go and enjoy some more time together. When we got to the theater we saw that it was incredibly 

ADA friendly with no stairs going into the theater and having a ramp leading to the lower level 

seating and an elevator leading to the upper level seating which gave us plenty of options on where

we wanted to sit and what level we preferred.  There were quite a few sections accessible 

for wheelchairs to be able to park to sit and watch the show. One negative we did come across was 

that we were not able to find any gender neutral bathrooms, however we stayed in the main area and

our seats. After the show was over we went around the corner and down a few blocks to have some

alone time.

Stop 3 (The Tiger Hotel)

On our journey to the Tiger Hotel we came across some bumpy sidewalks and cross walks. These 

were a bit challenging for our date because we were having such great conversation, it really put a 

damper on the talk because our date had to focus on wheeling down the sidewalk and avoid all the 

bumps and cracks that could be detrimental to the date. Once we finally made it to the Tiger Hotel 

we noticed there was yet another handicap parking spot and a parking garage with handicap parking 

spaces available on the first floor. However, when we got to the lip of the sidewalk it was another 

rough patch to go up because there were many holes and dips and cracks in that little ramp. A great 

positive of the hotel was that there are two automated doors on either side of the revolving door that 

our date could go thru. Immediately when we got into the hotel we saw a few stairs that led up to the 

receptionist desk and took us a minute to find the elevator as it is tucked away by luggage racks. 

Once we got to the receptionist desk we were able to check in just fine and go to one of the four 

handicap accessible rooms for our alone time and concluded our date.

Our date was a blast and we are so glad we found places that were pretty accessible to go to. Overall the project was a great learning experience for the both of us and realized that many more places could be accessible