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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Universo Santi in the southern Spanish city of Jerez is dedicated to helping people with disabilities join the mainstream workforce
The first thing that strikes you is the calm, the light, the modern art on the walls – and then of course the food.
It's only later that you realise there is something different, and a little special, about Universo Santi, a restaurant in the southern Spanish city of Jerez.
"People don't come here because the staff are disabled but because it's the best restaurant in the area. Whatever reason they came for, the talking is about the food," says Antonio Vila.
Vila is the president of the Fundación Universo Accesible, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping people with disabilities join the mainstream workforce. He has also been the driving force behind Universo Santi, the haute cuisine restaurant whose 20 employees all have some form of disability.
[...] The 20 staff, whose ages range from 22 to 62, were recruited from an original list of 1,500. To qualify, applicants had to be unemployed and have more than 35% disability.
[...] The Jerez restaurant takes its name from Santi Santamaria, chef at the Michelin three-star Can Fabes in Catalonia until his sudden death in 2011. Can Fabes closed shortly afterwards but his family wanted to carry on his name and culinary tradition and were keen to support the Jerez project.
The family's enthusiasm attracted the attention of Spain's top chefs, among them Martín Berasategui, Roca and Ángel León, all of whom have contributed recipes and their time as guest chefs at the restaurant.
Disciples of Santamaria helped establish the kitchen, whose equipment was transferred in its entirely from Can Fabes, and several of the dishes on the menu de degustación are Santamaria originals.
The restaurant has been visited by Michelin Guide personnel and may soon have its first Michelin star.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/10/universo-santi-spanish-restaurant-disabilities-jerez
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday June 12 2019, @11:46PM (2 children)
But, like you, I think this is a laudible effort. I'm not saying the policy should be adopted more widely, but that the attitude should. This is a project more than a business, it's a project whose point is to show others that outdated stereotypes about capability are pointless, and can possibly be damaging - you're overlooking potentially highly skilled candidates if you're knee-jerk rejecting those with fewer than two whole legs, for example.
Good luck to them. And I mean good luck. As stated above, I know it's a freaking lottery whether you can make it in this market.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:04AM (1 child)
This restaurant is in Spain. Spain currently has a current unemployment rate of 15%. This is a company actively exploiting disabled people in a nation where millions of perfectly able people, who would not qualify for disability compensation, are desperately looking for work. The goal of this is to create a marketing gimmick to tug on the heartstrings of a certain well moneyed group of people exclusively with the goal of, in turn, getting them to loosen those pursestrings to buy overpriced food.
This is not a laudable effort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @09:26AM
People are free to eat there or not.
There is zero compulsion on the part of the public.
There are no rules to hire disabled over abled in any OTHER restaurant.
So long as it stays this way... let this restaurant owner do what he wants to with his restaurant without complaints.