Special servers dish out rare experience for diners

Jaipur: Jaipur, a popular tourist destination, is seeing a new crop of entrepreneurs who are recognising people with special needs  as viable workforce. The Pink City's three hotels have stood out by promising customers a unique experience with these special employees. Vitthal's Kitchen, a restaurant on Sahkar Marg, Thadiwala, a café in Vaishali Nagar, and Lemon Tree Group's Hotel Red Fox restaurants on Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg and Bani Park, are following in the footsteps of two nationwide cafe chains that have successfully employed people with disabilities.

As one’s hand reaches the door of the Vitthal’s Kitchen, a message in large yellow letters on a blue sheet catches one’s attention. “We can’t speak and hear, but we can serve you with a smile,” it reads. “Though the serving staff can’t speak or hear you, one can get better service than at any other restaurant,” said 33-year-old Ashish Sharma, the owner who had made a promise to himself to help them.

On the other side of the city is Thadiwala that employs speech and hearing impaired too. Neha Parikh and Ankita Parikh, in their early 20s, set up the restaurant chain in Nathdwara in 2015 and decided to hire people with disabilities as serving staff after a chance meeting with a group of such people.

“They came to our restaurant and faced problems while ordering food. After a brief interaction (on paper), we thought of employing them in our outlets,” Ms Neha said, while speaking over telephone from Nathdwara. Thadiwala has three outlets, two in Jaipur and one in Jodhpur, which have people with disabilities as the serving staff.

The trend was started by hotel chain, Lemon Tree hotels. While it took courage on the part of a young entrepreneur like Mr Sharma or Ms Neha to hire people with disabilities, but for a hotel chain the decision was more challenging looking at the stiff competition in the hospitality industry.

Four years after it came up, the Lemon Tree Group took the bold initiative of recruiting them. More than a decade later, 11 per cent of the 4,500-strong workforce across 45 hotels in 27 cities is people with disabilities while 6.5 per cent of its employees are from economically weaker sections. They have not only hired people with disabilities, but also are conducting trials for hiring people suffering with Down Syndrome and Autism.

“It was a conscious decision to employ people with disabilities. It isn’t merely fulfilling corporate social responsibility, but a part of our business model,” spokesperson Divya Agha said. In fact, the hotel chain has developed a process of inducting people with disabilities and those with economic and social disadvantages. As a fair and sensitive approach, every employee needed to be conversant in the sign language.

To be successful, a business needs to have more than good intentions, especially, in an industry that depends on quick and seamless delivery of services. While training them in all aspects of working in a restaurant from cleaning tables to taking orders and serving food; Mr Sharma picked up a bit of sign language too. “It was necessary to have an understanding with them,” he added.

At Vitthal’s Kitchen, the menu card is specially designed. A specific code is written against each food item. The menu card comes with an instruction on how to place the order, all one has to do is point to the code and show his or her fingers for quantity.

“We set up light bulbs on the tables which are connected to the kitchen. Whenever a customer takes a table or is ready to place an order, he or she only has to press a button and the staff will come. A notebook is then given to the customer for writing the order,” said Neha Parikh, co-owner, Thadiwala. Next, she said we are planning to bring out an app for both the customers and the serving staff.

Lemon Tree, initially, hired people with disabilities in back-end roles like kitchen stewarding, housekeeping before placement on front desk and restaurant. They have also been given cards, which help in sensitising guests.

“Business is as usual. There is no adverse impact rather people appreciate my initiative and visit us regularly,” Mr Sharma said. “They are sincere and hard working,” Ms Divya said.

And, the staffers, they couldn’t have asked for more. Their happy faces and firm handshakes say it all. Some of them like Raju, Anil and Lokesh at Red Fox are too happy to continue in their jobs while some at Vitthal’s Kitchen are preparing for SSC examinations.