Hi folks, you can take the old man out of New York, but you can't take New York out of the old man. Actually you can't even do the first one :-).
My dad is aging in place and increasingly mobility compromised — it's basically just really hard for him to walk unassisted. But because his life on the Upper West Side still revolves around all of his usual favorite places, and many of those places are not particularly easy for handicapped folks, it's become challenging for him to go out as much.
Most places are perfectly friendly about it, and will eagerly stash his rollator (walker) after he gets to his table, or they'll have a little dumb-waiter elevator installation to lift you half a flight of stairs, so they get marked as "wheelchair accessible" in the guidebooks. But so many places have tight little entry doorways, a couple steps up into the restaurant, a half-flight of stairs up or down to the restrooms, a vestibule requiring a tight turn and holding one door behind you while opening another in front of you, a maze of packed tables and chairs — you know, New York.
I'm trying to get him into a wheelchair to make his life easier and would love recommendations of places that make this super easy. Like exit taxi, roll up, roll in, get taxi home. He can stand up and slide into a seat or whatever, and they can put the chair away, but I'd love for him not to have to navigate among an impassible bunch of tight tables and chairs. (Looking at you, Cafe Luxembourg.)
Are there any places that are more wheelchair welcoming that are good? They don't have to be michelin stars or bib gourmand, but they can be good 3-dollar-sign type places, just not like mediocre tourist spots or hotel or pre-theater type restaurants that the bigger, more spacious places often are. A good steakhouse would be nice, a decent italian would be great, as would a good diner(!), but anything good on the UWS and/or a reasonable cab away that fits the description would be welcome. (RIP Boulud Sud, btw.). Anything old NYC spots (e.g. Oyster Bar, or old west village type places) that happen to have non-obvious wheelchair karma would also be cool to know about.
Thank you in advance. I have searched past posts and looked at https://www.accessibletravelnyc.com/ as suggested by a previous commenter.
by gc1
Dining and Cooking