VANCOUVER -- After developing a blind-dining concept restaurant in Vancouver that hires blind servers, owner Moe Alameddine has set his sights on the deaf community.

On Thursday, he will open a new Mediterranean restaurant, along with his business partner Sami Mousattat, on West 4th Avenue in Kitsilano called Deafined, staffed entirely by deaf servers. They’ve hired 10 servers, who will communicate with guests using a mix of sign language and writing on paper.

“I’m very excited and they are very excited,” he said, during a break in training servers on Saturday. “This is a unique experience and it’s going to be a lot of fun. I want to break down that barrier of communicating with deaf people. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. We’ve landed a person on the moon so we can learn how to talk to all people.”

Alameddine’s restaurant is the third concept restaurant to hire deaf or hard of hearing staff in North America. The other two are Mozzeria, a pizza restaurant in San Francisco, and Signs Restaurant in Toronto.

When customers arrive at Deafined, they are greeted by an interpreter, who introduces them to their server. The interpreter can communicate to the server for the guest, but the idea is to learn a bit of sign language as part of the dining experience.

The menu is simple to understand and food options are numbered and accompanied by a drawing of the sign for each number or letter.

Guests who are anxious about ordering the wrong dish if they mess up the sign needn’t worry. The servers will correct the guest and show them how to do the sign if it’s not quite right. For those with dietary restrictions or requests, there is a jar on the table with pencils and paper to write down modifications.

Hiring people with disabilities is not a new concept for Alameddine, who in 2012 opened Dark Table, where patrons eat a meal in the dark served by blind or visually impaired staff. His company O. Noir was inspired by Jorge Spielmann, a blind man in Switzerland who launched the concept by blindfolding guests to give them an idea of what eating is like for a blind person.

He said, as with the blind, there is also a great need in the deaf community for employment opportunities.

“They are not well represented in the hospitality industry. They cannot rely on the government so they must look to the private sector to hire them. Working for so long with the blind community has been so great and I’ve learned so much from them. They want to work, but no one is giving them the chance,” he said.

Alameddine and Mousattat found the servers for Deafined through the YWCA in Vancouver and the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

“It has been three months of hard work, training, hiring, renovating and planning,” said Alameddine.

Alan Yien, a job developer at the WorkBC Employment Services Centre at the YWCA, described Alameddine as a “pioneer in hiring people with disabilities” and said he hopes his work will inspire other business owners to hire people from the deaf community.

According to The Canadian Association of the Deaf, only about 20 per cent of deaf Canadians are employed full-time. An estimated 350,000 Canadians are deaf, while more than 3 million are hard of hearing.

Server Mika Sarmiento, 29, who came to Canada from the Philippines in 2009, said she is excited by the job opportunity. She hasn’t worked as a server before but said, through interpreter Alana McKenna, that she wasn’t concerned about communicating with guests. She believes customers will have a good time learning the signs, and said all the servers are really friendly. “We won’t bite you,” she said, with a chuckle.

ticrawford@vancouversun.com

With a file from Gillian Shaw

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