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A popular East Midlands burger restaurant has joined forces with a county sight charity to publish a Braille version of its menu to help blind and visually impaired diners get more from their visit.

Annie’s Burger Shack has collaborated with the My Sight Notts charity to produce the menu, which provides a description of the 34 different burgers the restaurant serves, along with the prices.

The menu, which is available at both Annie’s Burger Shack restaurants in Nottingham and Derby, was launched this month to benefit visually impaired visitors who previously had to ask their server or their companions to read the menu out to them.

My Sight Notts, which works to support blind and partially sighted people living in the county to lead independent lives, offers companies a Braille translation service and worked with Annie’s over a number of weeks to produce the menus.

Among the items listed in the menu are the restaurant’s Delta burger, which is topped with cheese, onion rings and jalapeno peppers and the Kogumaza, which is described as a burger “slathered with peanut satay sauce topped with crunchy onions, a pinch of coconut and fresh coriander”.

Restaurant owner Annie Spaziano, who opened her Nottingham restaurant in 2009 and her Derby outlet in 2018, said: “I have been wanting to produce a Braille menu for years and so I’m delighted that we’ve finally been able to get it produced and made available to our customers.

“Our burgers have a huge range of ingredients on them to ensure that each one is unique, and so to describe them all to someone would take ages. We want to make sure that people come here and relax, so it makes sense to make sure that everyone can explore our menu independently in their own time.

“My Sight Notts have done a wonderful job for us and we are already looking at other ways in which we can collaborate with them.” 

Julie Sarle, communications manager of the charity – whose headquarters are based just a short distance from Annie’s Nottingham restaurant – welcomed the menu, saying that it would help diners like her to get more from their dining experience.

She said: “There are only a handful of restaurants in Nottingham which have Braille menus and I would hope that others follow Annie’s’ lead because having menus that blind or partially sighted people to read would normalise their dining experience.

“I’m partially sighted myself and so when I eat out I have to rely on the people I’m with to read the menu out to me. I would prefer to make my own choice in my own time and having a Braille menu allows me to do that.

“Our Braille-writing service isn’t expensive and the proceeds go back into the charity’s work to support visually impaired people so it’s a win-win situation for everyone.”

For more details visit www.anniesburgershack.com