My aunt comes to visit me every Sunday and takes me and my friends out for lunch. This past Sunday we went to The Riv Riviera Café in Bridgewater and found that it is not wheelchair accessible, yet my friends managed to get me inside! The parking lot has one handicap parking space that is conveniently located right up front. Once we got out of our van, we noticed that there are steps leading to the main entry door.
My aunt went inside and asked if they have a handicap entrance for persons in wheelchairs. They told her that she could take me, who was in my manual wheelchair to the side of the building where I could enter through an emergency exit door.
Once we got to the side of the building we saw that there is a deck that has one step you must get up in order to get to the emergency exit door. My friends managed to get my manual wheelchair onto this deck by slightly tilting my wheelchair. My Power Chair would not have been able to get up this step for it is too heavy to lift it so this is one of the few times that I am happy to have been in my manual wheelchair. This emergency exit door is not automatic and has a small lip so here my friends had to tilt my wheelchair again to get me over this lip.
Wow! I was beginning to wonder if all of this was even worth having lunch at this restaurant.
We finally made it inside and were seated at a table in the dining area. I found that the table here is a good height for my chair but a little small to fit all four of us comfortably, but we managed.
Two rooms are located in this restaurant. One room is a bar/lounge that has flat screen TVs that are hung on the wall. The tables in this lounge are all high bar tables with high chairs that are too high for me to sit at and of course the bar is too high too. The other room is the dining room, which is where we ate lunch. This dining room also has a flat screen TVs on the wall, two high bar tables, regular sized tables and coat hangers that are hung too high on the wall for me to reach. It does have a large projection screen that is turned on to watch sports which is easy for me to see.
This restaurant offers Keno but the lottery desk where you purchase the Keno tickets is too high for a person in a wheelchair to reach. I don’t gamble on Keno so it is not a problem for me, but I’m sure some wheelers do like to play Keno. There is a video game machine on the high desk that I would have liked to have played but couldn’t due to the tall height of the desk.
My friends and I then decided to check out the restroom to see if it is wheelchair accessible. It is spacious and easy to maneuver my wheelchair around and has the safety bars, located at a good height on the back and side wall by the toilet. The accessible sink is a good height for my wheelchair and the pipes under the accessible sink are covered as is now ADA required. The only problem I saw in here was that the soap dispenser and hand dryer is placed to high for me to reach and the mirror is placed too high for me to see myself.
The only good news about this place is that our food and service was good! If you’re ever traveling through Bridgewater, I would not recommend this restaurant to any person traveling in a wheelchair. There are many good restaurants in Bridgewater that are fully wheelchair accessible.
I give The Riv Riviera Café ZERO STARS for wheelchair accessibility. In order to earn Five Stars, they would need to build a wheelchair accessible ramp leading to the main entry door; install an automatic entry door; place some accessible tables in the lounge; lower the coat hanger; lower the lottery/keno desk and lower the soap dispenser, hand drier and mirror in the restroom.