BYRON, GA. – Armando Vias, a community advocate who’s championing equal access for everyone and representing as the Chair of the Houston County Democratic Committee – Disability Caucus and the Chair of the Young Democrats of Georgia’s Disability Caucus has released the following statement regarding his disappointing experience using the self-ordering kiosks at two of the local Wendy’s restaurants in the local area.
These self-ordering kiosks has accessibility features that are built into the system, such as an audio headphone jack and tactile buttons, along with a keypad to enter a PIN for credit/debit cards.
On Monday, August 11, 2025, me and my friend visited Wendy’s at two locations in my area, hoping for me to finally experience using their self-ordering kiosks with built-in accessibility features. And yes, I was auditing these kiosks to make sure that they’re accessible as they claimed to be with the tactile buttons and the headphone audio jack.
This auditing started after I visited one of the Wendy’s locations some weeks ago when my friend noticed these kiosks. Before then, I was auditing McDonalds kiosks in my local area for accessibility after I saw a video of someone from the National Federation of the Blind demonstrating an accessible self-ordering kiosk. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to use the Wendy’s ordering kiosks due to me not having the headphones that plugs into the headphone audio jack at the time that I visited.
Fast forward to Monday, August 11, 2025 in the evening, I had my headphones with me and decided that it was a good time to go to one of the Wendy’s locations to try out the self-ordering kiosks. However, what I discovered was a complete and utter disappointment.
I first visited the Wendy’s that’s located in Warner Robins, Georgia on Watson Blvd. After plugging in my headphones, I was greeted with no speech output. I tried pressing all of the buttons, changing the volume, and going through other troubleshooting steps to try to get it to work. In the end, it didn’t work at all.
My friend even asked one of the workers to help try to get it to work. However, they don’t know how to use the accessibility features of the kiosks either.
Luckily, there were two kiosks at this Wendy’s location. When I plugged in my headphones to the second kiosk, the same thing happened, meaning both of these kiosks claimed to be accessible with tactile buttons and a headphone audio jack, but not with speech output that would’ve allowed me to explore and place an order privately and independently.
Then, me and my friend went to the second Wendy’s restaurant that’s located in Byron, Georgia. This Wendy’s only had one kiosk. When we got to the second location, where I plugged in my headphones after praying that this one will hopefully work, I was very disappointed to find out that this kiosk didn’t work either. In the end, I decided to order through the Wendy’s mobile app, in which it was accessible with VoiceOver.
While we have options to order via the Wendy’s app or by going to the counter to talk to someone that’ll take our orders, some of us may prefer to use the self-ordering kiosks instead of our smartphones to place our orders. Also, some blind and/or low vision customers may not have a smartphone to use the Wendy’s app to place an order, leaving the kiosks the only option to use or having to bring someone with them at all times to help them order. If a blind customer decides to independently go to Wendy’s with headphones, and if they find out that the kiosk(s) isn’t 100% accessible, depending on how busy the restaurant is, they’ll have to either wait for a long time or even leave the restaurant altogether.
While there’s also DoorDash, UberEats, and other delivery apps to order food from Wendy’s to deliver to their house, blind customers deserve to go out into the community like everyone else.
Due to the accessibility issues that I faced on August 11, 2025, the first step that I took was contacting Wendy’s Customer Care via their website yesterday evening. Unfortunately, there was a 500 character limit, making me unable to write my whole experience to them. Also, I lost the letter after accidentally copying something to the clipboard, meaning that the letter won’t be available on this website.
While I cannot go to every single Wendy’s to test all of the kiosks for accessibility because that’s not possible to do, I’ll continue to fight for equal access for all blind customers in my local community who’d like to get something to eat at all local Wendy’s restaurants in my area.