Our History

Access Nashville started in 2004 after a call was made to Tennessee Disability Pathfinder, a statewide information and referral service, requesting information about accessible restaurants in the area. This information was not readily available and as a result a diverse group of individuals from the disability, business, government, advocacy and aging fields joined together to address this issue. Key partners included Tennessee Disability Pathfinder, a project of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities who agreed to financially support this effort by donating staff time and office supplies. In addition, the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau agreed to post restaurant accessibility ratings on their website. With volunteer support in place to guide this project, Access Nashville began to gather “accessibility friendly” information about restaurants in Nashville, Tennessee. Initially, community volunteers surveyed restaurants but this approach was not efficient due to the large number of restaurants in the Nashville area. * Please note that Access Nashville does not survey fast food chain restaurants.

In 2006-2007, the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities, provided funding to Vanderbilt Kennedy Center to expand accessibility training from community volunteers to college classrooms as a service learning project and many local universities and community colleges have participated. From January 2007 to December 2009, over 350 restaurants have been surveyed (or re-surveyed) by college trainees.

Until 2010, the purpose of Access Nashville focused on gathering and disseminating “accessibility-friendly” information about restaurants in the Nashville. In 2010, Access Nashville expanded its website to include accessibility-friendly information about hotels, transportation services, entertainment attractions, in addition to restaurants. Many members of the original task force have remained active in the Access Nashville Coalition that guides the activities of Access Nashville.

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Access Nashville Coalition

The Access Nashville Coalition of volunteers from business, government, disability, and aging fields include:

Terry Clements - Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau

Donna DeStefano - Tennessee Disability Coalition

Kenton Dickerson - Center for Independent Living of Middle Tennessee

Diane Dietrich - United Cerebral Palsy of Middle Tennessee

Jerry Hall - ADA Compliance Division, Metro ADA office

Lisa Hester - Tennessee Arts Commission

Tom Hopton - Center for Independent Living of Middle Tennessee

Martie Lafferty - Disability Law and Advocacy Center of Tennessee

Loretta Luckadoo - ADA Compliance Division, Metro ADA office

Carole Moore-Slater - Tennessee Disability Pathfinder

Sheila Odusoze - Disability Law and Advocacy Center of Tennessee

Diane Schlaufman - Area Agency on Aging and Disability, GNRC

Ned Solomon - Partners In Policymaking™ Leadership

Floyd Stewart - Center for Independent Living of Middle Tennessee