The Ultimate Guide To Woo Your Date

Dating in the 21st century has become harder than ever.  Everyone in this day and age tries to outdo everyone else in wooing their dream date.  However, when dating someone with a disability, there is an extra challenge of making sure all aspects of your date are accessible to your wonderful date!  That is why we have come up with “The Ultimate Guide To Woo Your Date!” This guide is a guarantee to getting a second date with the person of your dreams and having a great time!  The date includes a great dinner at Lee Street Deli, an intellectual exhibit at the Sauger Braudis Gallery, and we will end the night at the high-end Broadway Hotel to really seal the deal in wooing your date.

       








     The night begins with meeting your dream date at Lee Street Deli -- a staple for students on East Campus and campus wide.  Located centrally on the corner of Lee Street and Wilson Avenue, it is a convenient spot to meet with a student from any location in Columbia.   The curb has ramp access and a double wide sidewalk as you walk in, and a beautiful patio you can easily roll up to a table at.  However, you will have to wheel around a pothole as you get closer to the front door.  The doorway itself has a wide frame which would allow for most sizes of wheelchairs to enter, and has a flat door entrance.  Once you are in the deli, you will instantly notice the space and extreme accessibility of the restaurant.  The store is mainly open space which would make it extremely easy to maneuver around anywhere in the restaurant you need to go.  There are only two table in the entire restaurant and they are both as you can see booths with plenty of room to fit a chair in at the end of the table.  When it comes to ordering, it couldn't be more accessible to all with a low counter, space to roll up, and a slot in which a chair can fit, anybody is welcome to the deli.  With ample lighting and a very large overhead menu, the deli is very accessible to anyone who may suffer from any visual issues.  Not to mention having only two tables makes for a cozy and quiet environment to get to know your date, and without lots of other people around, it is very useful for any dating with auditory disabilities. And the menu features a low cost with a large portion of food, convenient for any budget and socio-economic status. While there is no bathroom for customers, the next two stops on our date have very accessible bathrooms.  After you finish your meal, you will continue your stimulating conversation as you walk from Lee Street Deli to the next stop, Sauger Braudis Art Gallery, for some entertainment.

            On the walk from Lee Street Deli to Sauger Braudis Art Gallery, it’s a bit of a journey, but offers plenty of time for you to charm your date with intellectual conversation and witty banter. The crosswalk is extremely damaged at University Avenue and College Avenue, so it’s best to avoid that part of the intersection, and head into campus. There are a few uneven parts of the sidewalk and cracks in the road down after passing Hitt Street. When we started down Ninth Street towards Walnut Street, we ran into some construction that forced pedestrians to walk alongside traffic. After passing Kaldi’s Coffee, there were four or five sandwich boards outside of the businesses that forced us to “snake” through the sidewalk, and we considered to be a major inconvenience for wheelchair users or people with poor vision. This would not be ideal if you’re trying to woo your date.
            At the art gallery, there are two entrances: one with a steep incline, and one with a leveled entrance to accommodate disabled persons. The gallery has a lot of open space that would allow a wheelchair user plenty of room to wheel around the exhibits and furniture. On each wall, there are paintings or other forms of art, and beside each piece of art are were brochures for the gallery and the current art collection. These brochures were sitting at a low height, which we found to be accessible for people in wheelchairs. However, none of the brochures or information were offered in braille, so it would not be accessible for someone who is blind. Also, there were descriptions next to the art pieces, but they were extremely high on the wall, and written in a tiny font.
            The bathrooms in the gallery were not gender neutral, which may be disappointing to your date, but they offered a lot of space for wheelchair users. There were two single stalls and one handicapped stall. In the handicapped stall, there were three bars next to the toilet for support. A disappointing part of the bathroom was the counters—they were very high, and the soap and faucet were very far from the end of the counter. The sinks would be almost impossible for a wheelchair user to access, which is disappointing, considering how accessible the bathrooms had been thus far.

After a long night on the town, we figured we would hit up one of Columbia’s newer hotel hot spots. The Broadway, located directly on Broadway Street in the heart of downtown, is a perfect spot for a private space. At first we had originally wanted to go to the Tiger Hotel, since it is a landmark of Columbia, but their website and staff weren’t clear on accommodations for disabled people. When asked if we could take photos of their accommodations that they had mentioned, Dale, the Manager on Duty had told us that taking photos was a “process” and we would be “fined” if we did. The same thing happened when we asked to take photos of the Broadway Hotel, but their staff was more understanding.

On our walk to the Broadway, we ran into some issues with the sidewalks downtown obviously, but we were able to take a shortcut through their parking garage to get to the front entrance, and the garage had a very wide crosswalk area that was in very good condition.

The Broadway is noticeably accessible even from the outside. With ramps, a large front electric door, and a wide and smooth sidewalk. The lobby is also extremely accessible it features, room to get a chair around, low lounge couches, and even an accessible bathroom in the lobby while you wait for your room to be ready, as well as extra wide hallways throughout the hotel. The
hotel features 8 different accessible rooms featuring roll-in showers, accessible tubs (with 5 helpful support access bars), space for a chair to wheel all around, a roll-up accessible bathroom vanity, accessible toilets, lowered towel holders, and visual alerts. There is also braille in the elevators as well as on the room numbers.

The Broadway Hotel is a Doubletree by Hilton, so it isn’t very economically accessible, and would probably be better for a second date or for someone you really want to impress.  But with accessible rooms starting at $80 a night, it's definitely worth saving for!

While having your dream date with an individual with any form of disabilities can have its added concerns when it comes to accessibility, many of Columbia’s best spots have made planning easier by implementing various helpful features to make the date go as smoothly as possible. Spots like Lee Street Deli, Sauger Braudis Art Gallery, and the Broadway Hotel make a memorable date that your partner will remember because of your charm and sweet talk, rather than how hard it was for them on the date! So all you need to do is bring your charm, charisma, and most importantly your A-game (and maybe a letter to the city about the sidewalks)!

Sidewalk from the Gallery to the Broadway Hotel: