Signing Waiters at New Rome Restaurant

ANSA reports that Italy's first restaurant for deaf people opened in Rome this week. Staff at the Ciak Si Mangia eatery are trained to take orders in Italian Sign Language (LIS, or Lingua Italiana dei Segni). The restaurant, which seats 40 people, claims to be only the second establishment of its type in Europe.

Besides food, the restaurant also provides a range of facilities for its deaf customers, including equipment that enables deaf people to communicate via telephone and computers so they can send emails and chat over the Internet. Diners can also watch subtitled movies on a big screen. One of the computers features software which people can use to teach themselves sign language.

According to Laura Santarelli, the Vice President of the European Deaf Academy and a sign-language interpreter for Italian national television news, there are 4,500 deaf people in Rome and one out of every 1,000 people in Italy is deaf or has hearing problems.