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Neighborhood Joint

The Diner With the Braille Menu

Every day, residents of Selis Manor walk a few doors down to the Malibu for breakfast, or for a lunch special.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

“Six in the morning,” said Sharon Lash, “I’m headed to the Malibu.”

Ms. Lash, a petite woman, taps her way along 23rd Street with a white cane. She counts the doors, noting the sound each one makes as the cane hits it, then turns right.

There are diners in New York that draw Broadway hopefuls; other diners are popular with college students. Then there is the Malibu Diner, a favorite stop, and in some cases a daily one, for a large blind population in Manhattan.

The diner, at 163 West 23rd Street, lies several doors down from Selis Manor, a roughly 200-unit apartment building that offers housing to blind, visually-impaired and disabled New Yorkers. It is one reason that nearby crossing signals go “tick-tick-tick,” and “wait-wait-wait,” and that there are more service dogs than on the average block.

It is also the reason the Malibu Diner offers menus in Braille and has a speaker playing music outside, which signals to visually impaired regulars that they’ve arrived.

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Sharon Lash, a regular at the Malibu.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

“I walk in there and they say, ‘Hi, Sharon,’” said Ms. Lash, 65. “I know the waiters’ voices.”

The diner and the building for the blind appeared at about the same time — nearly four decades ago — and have been entwined ever since. The diner opened around 1978 in a handsome brick building that had once been home to the Traffic Cafeteria (the building still bears the name). Originally called City Diner, it became the Malibu Diner around 1981. Selis Manor, which was built by a blind newsdealer named Irving M. Selis, opened in 1980.

Every day, a few dozen residents walk from Selis Manor to the Malibu for breakfast, or for a lunch special, many with their dogs. There’s a system to serve blind patrons, said a waiter, George Stratis. If a server shouts “no mirando,” or “not seeing,” the Spanish-speaking kitchen staff knows to chop up an order, put dressing on a salad, even sprinkle salt and pepper. “They know to cut it into small pieces so they can eat it,” Mr. Stratis said.

Ms. Lash said the help is welcome. Many people who were born blind or lost their sight as babies did not learn how to neatly chop food, she said. “I can do it,” she added, “But if the Malibu will do it, why should I refuse?”

Ms. Lash is among the diner’s longtime regulars, having moved in to Selis Manor not long after it opened. She was born in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and has been blind since infancy. She attended a high school for the blind in the Bronx.

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Some customers come with their guide dogs to the Malibu, which offers menus in Braille.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

These days, she works for the Department of Homeland Security, transcribing the interviews of green-card and permanent resident applicants in her one-bedroom apartment.

Over the years, Ms. Lash says she has heard the Chelsea neighborhood change, growing more commercial and crowded. “When I got here, there was nobody,” she said. She can rattle off the names of businesses that have come and gone as the Malibu has hung on.

Before starting her workday, Ms. Lash goes there for breakfast. She often orders eggs, and cheese or eggs and avocado. “A variety of things with eggs,” she said. “And I’ve got to have my coffee.”

On weekends, she comes in to chat with Mr. Stratis, who has been serving her for about two decades. Mr. Stratis said, “If I say in the kitchen, ‘An order for Sharon,’ they know what to do.”

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There’s a system to serve blind patrons, said one waiter. If a server shouts “no mirando,” or “not seeing,” the Spanish-speaking kitchen staff knows to chop up an order, put dressing on a salad, even sprinkle salt and pepper.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

For about five years, the diner has partnered with Visions, a nonprofit based in Selis Manor that offers services to the blind and visually-impaired: It hands out breakfast vouchers to residents of the building.

Elizabeth Lee, director of caregiver and senior services at Visions, said the diner “filled a huge need” for the Selis Manor community. “The staff are knowledgeable about the population,” she said. “They’ll help them, they’ll escort them.” Ms. Lee said the residents redeem around 75 breakfast vouchers a week.

The diner is well-scrubbed and bustling, emitting the warm glow of the best diners. A seeing customer might notice the servers’ uniforms (blue shirt and red tie), the framed photographs of Iceland on the walls, the beige counter that looks like pebbly sand — the only obvious reference to the Malibu in California.

Visually impaired customers might have a slightly different experience. They might notice the intermittent clatter of silverware, the hissing milk steamer, Mr. Stratis chatting with tourists, Agnes Khakula, another server, singing under her breath.

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The Malibu has a speaker playing music outside, which signals to visually impaired regulars that they’ve arrived.Credit...Dan Balilty for The New York Times

But then again, they might not. Ms. Lash dismisses the idea that blind people have better hearing than sighted people. “That hearing stuff is a bunch of baloney,” she said. “We just have to be more alert.”

Often, the diner staff has gone beyond chopping meals for its blind regulars. After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when part of Manhattan was plunged into darkness and the elevators in Selis Manor were down, the diner donated food for the building’s stranded residents.

Last year, an explosive device was detonated outside Selis Manor, breaking windows and spewing shrapnel. No one in the building was harmed, but the residents of Selis Manor, who were asked to stay inside, were shaken — and stranded again.

Alexandros Grimpas, a co-owner of the diner, said that Governor Cuomo and the mayor came. Mr. Grimpas recalled the anxiety during this time. “Barbara, one of the blind people said, ‘We’re desperate, what are we going to do?’ They gave us the green light to coordinate with the Red Cross to bring them breakfast, lunch.’”

Ms. Lash, who remembers the blast and her window frame cracking, said the Malibu was a “lifesaver.” The diner staff cooked and delivered hundreds of meals to their loyal customers over the next days.

“They helped us out,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section MB, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: For Blind People, It’s a Second Home. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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