The Boulder Blind Cafe is a mind bending/heart opening, award winning, community awareness concert, discussion and sensory tasting held in the pitch dark. All the waitstaff are legally blind.

A vegetarian 'Sensory Tasting Experience' is sourced from local farms and business to provide a community-building 'family style' dinner that's prepared by volunteers and a professional Chef. A question and answer forum is held in the dark between the guests and our blind waitstaff. The audience engages in a very organic positive discussion about blindness, diversity and community. A music performance by 'Rosh & One Eye Glass Broken' closes the evening with an active listening experience where the audience works as a group to learn to 'listen' to music and each other, without the distractions of cell phones, social etiquette and visual conditioning.

"All of us left fired-up and inspired. If your goal was to engender a heightened awareness for music and a renewed sense of compassion for everyone around us, blind and sighted alike, then you've overachieved. We left feeling as if we'd been given a gift. Thank you for the phenomenal work." - Jon | Boulder Blind Cafe Guest

This is NOT, just a another dinner in the dark...it's a community experience where people connect, learn and grow from working together to participate in something greater than themselves. The Boulder Blind Cafe is designed to help you feel more alive, awake, present and connected to your world. With the love and laughter of those at your table you will break bread together, building friendship and community on a night you will never forget or SEE!

“It was easily one of the best dates I have taken my wife on all year and we experienced a closeness in the darkness that was rare in a public place.”

-Marco Lam | Acupuncturist Boulder, CO

"The Blind Café does not try to perfectly recreate blindness. Instead, it allows people to interact, trust each other, and experience community in an entirely new way. In the dark, there are no uncomfortable glances, no self-consciousness about what you’re wearing or what you weigh, no distinction between the sighted and blind. In a room specially outfitted with heavy cloth to be pitch black, diners get the rare chance to relax into themselves and enjoy music, food, and the company of others. You will bond with other diners at your table as you work together to pass the bread and feel out what exactly it is you are eating."

- Erin Greenhalgh / Boulder.com

"It dawned on me that I most likely hadn’t listened to music in the dark like this since I was a young teenager. It was so liberating to allow my mind and ears to focus on instrumentation with no visual input. I couldn’t tell if Rosh was on some shockingly coveted Martin guitar, or some $200 Korean-made junker. It must have been something of decent caliber, as it sounded wonderful, but was that because I was only listening that it sounded that good?"

- Brian Johnson | The Marquee

"Thank you for an amazing and magnificent evening.
Your vision in doing the blind cafe experience is brilliant and profound and your music is beautiful, heart filled and inspiring. I've had many powerful experiences in this life of 60 years so far.... this was one of the peaks. ~ Chuck

"Dear Boulderite friends, check this out!!! I just volunteered tonight's event and had an amazing experience... whether you want to volunteer or just come and have an experience... this is something you don't want to miss... "imagine entering a space where the boundaries of 'you' and 'other' soften in the absence of form, where your awareness is naturally expanded and this spaciousness if filled with joyful voices, delicious tastes and rich sensorial textures"... yum!!!! all the way around" ~Maria Bailey

"All of us left fired-up and inspired. If your goal was to engender a heightened awareness and a renewed sense of compassion for everyone around us, blind and sighted alike, then you've overachieved. We left feeling as if we'd been given a gift, indeed we had, and agreed we'd do our best to pass it on. I hope to visit the blind café again in the future and will be sure to recommend it to anyone who will listen. Thank you for the phenomenal work." - Jon | Boulder Blind Cafe Guest

“THANK YOU THANK YOU..A.M.A.Z.I.N.G evening! 2+hours in complete darkness...eating, drinking, listening to speakers/music, embracing and elevating our senses. To live for only 2 hours in a pretty comfortable environment and to experience a VERY small element of being blind. A completely humbling, inspiring and thought provoking experience...To hear the cello and violin in a way as I never have before. Cheers to Rosh and the crew, amazing souls and beings/warriors of light.”

-Angela Simon | Culinary School of the Rockies

Lyrics by Richie Flores
Your not alone here in the darkness
You got a hand to hold, it's mine
You got a friend here, here in the darkness
The night never ends so i've been told, when your blind...
to the truth to what you know is right
We've all been lost, we've all been out of sight
Walk with your head up high, into the night, here in the darkness everything's fine

At your next Blind Cafe experience...separate some cash to leave for a tip in the dark for the servers. Here's how to do it. Set a side a little more cash than you would want to tip. Watch both of these videos and mark your bills the way they describe. Then when you are at the next Blind Cafe put that cash in your back pocket. When you wish to leave a tip at the table in the dark at the end of the show, try to pull out the amount you want using one of the methods for distinguishing the different bills. :)