Toronto restaurants all seem to have basement bathrooms and it's a problem

Toronto boasts thousands of bars and restaurants, but have you noticed how most of them have bathrooms in the basement? One map designed by a local entrepreneur shows a surprisingly high volume of spots with inaccessible ground-floor washrooms.

Maayan Ziv is the founder of AccessNow, an app that maps and rates the accessibility of public places in Toronto. 

Ziv, who lives with spinal muscular atrophy and uses a wheelchair to get around, designed the app so that users can search a particular space and see how accessible it really is via a green thumbs-up or a red thumbs-down icon. A yellow pylon icon on the app indicates a space is only partially accessible.

For instance, the Kinton Ramen location in Koreatown is flagged with a red thumbs down for its inaccessibility, as is The Keg Mansion on Jarvis St., and the hip taco spot Seven Lives in Kensington. 

While AccessNow has expanded across the globe, Ziv says spaces in Toronto are mapped to a level that users wouldn't see in other cities.

"Businesses are engaged, government partners are engaged, and that really helps us create the ecosystem that the app is really there to create, which is that it's not just people with disabilities shouting into a void," Ziv says. 

Toronto resident Sarah Deline tells blogTO her mother has mobility issues and, therefore, using stairs is out of the question. Often, she will spend a lot of time researching which restaurants "might work" when dining out. Deline finds the  AccessNow app helpful and refers back to it when making plans. 

"It seems like the majority of Toronto non-chain restaurants have their bathrooms in the basements, and none, or very few, are on the main level," Deline says.

Ziv agrees, saying the costs of accessibility upgrades are always going to be more of a challenge for a smaller, independent restaurant. 

"The likelihood of creating an accessible kind of public washroom that is available to patrons is not an option in an old location or in a business that's been inherited," Ziv says. "It's not always an option to renovate or retrofit." 

However, there are ways to be creative.

"Maybe there's a staff bathroom that's on the main level that is available only to staff that could be prioritized to also include guests with disabilities," Ziv says.

"Maybe two doors down there is a business that [has a ground-floor washroom], so can you create a relationship with that business, in which they open their doors to customers that are not going there unless they actually have to use the washroom." 

Having lived in the East York area for a number of years now, Deline shouts out one particular spot, Local Public Eatery in Leaside, for their thoughtfulness in accommodating her family.

"I called them to confirm a table that my mother could get into, and they asked so many thoughtful follow-up questions, like does she use a mobility aid, and would she need an adjusting table that could accommodate a wheelchair," Deline says. "They also have an elevator to their second-floor patio room, if we wanted. I was so impressed."