Several restaurants in Austin now use Braille menus

Visually impaired students at the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center created Braille menus for several restaurants across Austin.It's a special project seven weeks in the making.Visually impaired Austinites will now have more choices and more independence.Before Friday, Sheila Tigner often avoided restaurants.

She didn't like relying on someone else to tell her what's on the menu."If it's a busy time, they don't have time to tell you the ingredients and how it's made," Tigner says.That's why Tigner along with about 50 other visually impaired students at the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center took the matter into their own hands -- they created Braille menus.

Each team worked to enter the menus into the computer.The students chose their favorite Austin restaurants and translated every word on the menus into Braille.With the finished product ready, the students hand-deliver the new menus to each restaurant.Something so simple, that many take for granted, gave Sheila a whole new perspective on eating out. Now she has great food at her fingertips.Austin restaurants now have Braille menus along with regular ones to offer customers.