The Dark Table acts as a unique restaurant venture that takes the concept of in restaurant dining to a whole new level. The key idea is blind dining. What is blind dining you ask? It’s an original experience of dining out in complete darkness.
The way the Dark Table works is that individuals are given a menu outside by a hostess and must order either a starter and main meal, main meal and dessert or all three. Starters and desserts are always a surprise where as the main course has the option of being personally selected from the menu. Allergies are written down by hosts.
Once the diners have chosen their meal, a blind or visually impaired waiter leads them to their seats within a pitch black room and supplies them with their orders. Cellphones or any brightly lit objects are not allowed within the restaurant in order to not ruin the mystery and thrilling atmosphere of the restaurant. Due to the darkness, waiters are often very vocal when dealing with customers such as when carrying hot food. Often you’ll hear someone shouting “caution hot” several times as waiters manoeuvre in the darkness. Bathroom trips are made by waiters escorting diners to and from dim lit washrooms.
How is this social entrepreneurship? Well a social enterprise is a business venture that applies change to a social issue. The social issue that the Dark Table tackles is employment for the blind or visually impaired. The unemployment rate for the blind is 70%. Many struggle to find jobs and the Dark Table is helping to rectify this issue by supplying jobs to the blind community. With their business also located in Montreal and Toronto they are the only blind dining service offered in Canada. So not only does this company supply customers with an original experience, it also helps to create a great benefit to the surrounding blind community.