The Santa Cruz Blind Cafe, is a mind bending/heart opening experience where the audience will indulge in a vegetarian 'Sensory Tasting Experience' sourced from local sponsors and farms, participate in a Q & A forum with their blind wait staff & enjoy an 'unencumbered music listening' concert of original music by Rosh & One Eye Glass Broken...all in the complete pitch dark!!!

About the event:

A delicious vegetarian 'Sensory Tasting Experience' will be prepared to delight your senses by our lovely volunteers and a local Chef. We source as much of the produce and food from local sponsors and farms as possible. You will be sharing tables 'family style' with other guests working together to get your food.

Your heart and mind will be opened as you celebrate and explore the darkness with Gerry Leary, a blind master coffee roaster (www.theunseenbean.com) and the rest of our awesome blind waitstaff. A question and answer forum will offer you opportunities to learn about the lives of blind persons by sharing in their personal stories.

You will experience an 'unencumbered music listening' concert, without the distraction of visual conditioning, social etiquette & your cell phones! This is a 'quiet listening experience' where the audience is empowered as a group to practice listening to music deeply. Rarely, do people actually 'listen' to live music anymore. The darkness will allows you a chance to go deeply inside yourself, with the rhythms, melodies and lyrics of the music, in ways you may never have before.

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 Santa Cruz 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! A portion of the proceeds from this event will be donated to a local organization that helps to improve the lives of the blind community in your area.

What people are saying about The Blind Cafe...

“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

"My husband, Aaron and I made a date night out of The Blind Cafe and it actually made a pretty big impact on our marriage...I realized (again) how important it is to just enjoy the life that I've been given, so since then I've been cutting back on things that to me are superfluous, and been focusing on what's really important."

- Elizabeth Lehr / Austin Blind Cafe Guest

"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 | Blind Cafe Guest

"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 Music Magazine



"We had a truly enlightening experience last night at the The Blind Cafe in Austin! Dinner and concert in complete darkness- what a perspective-altering 2 hours- and for an amazing cause!"
- Sarah Evans, Guest