Accessibility statement

Local Cafes is meant for everyone who needs a phone number, an address or opening hours in the United States, whatever their ability, device or connection. This statement says what we do about that, where we still fall short and how to reach us.

Last reviewed 12 October 2026.

Our standard

We work towards the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA, and we take the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as the yardstick for what “accessible” means.

What we do

• Plain HTML first. Every page is rendered on the server and readable without JavaScript. Scripts only add conveniences such as search suggestions, the photo lightbox and the quick-search assistant.
• Structure. One heading hierarchy per page, landmarks for header, navigation, main content and footer, breadcrumbs, and lists where the content is a list.
• Keyboard. Everything can be operated from the keyboard: menus, the FAQ accordions, the lightbox (arrow keys and Escape) and the assistant (Escape closes it).
• Screen readers. Images carry descriptive alternative text or are marked decorative; icons are hidden from assistive technology; live regions announce assistant replies; buttons have names.
• Contrast and text. Text meets the 4.5:1 contrast ratio in both light and dark colour schemes, follows your system’s dark-mode preference, and scales with your browser’s zoom and font size without horizontal scrolling.
• Small screens and slow networks. Pages are light, compressed and cached, and layouts reflow on phones down to 320 pixels wide.
• No traps. No pop-ups on load, no auto-playing media, no time limits, no cookie wall.

Known limitations

• Photos and reviews from Google come as they are: photos have generic alternative text (the business name), and review text may be in any language.
• Embedded maps, when shown, are third-party frames we cannot fully make accessible; the address and a link to Google Maps are always given as text.
• Advertisements are served by third parties and may not meet our standard.
• Star ratings are also given as numbers, but the star glyphs themselves are decorative.

How we check

We test with keyboard-only navigation, VoiceOver on macOS and iOS, browser zoom to 200 % and automated checks in the browser’s accessibility tools before each release, and we re-check this statement at least once a year.

Tell us

If something on Local Cafes is hard to use, does not work with your assistive technology or you need content in another format, email us. Tell us the page address and what happened; we reply within 5 working days and fix what we can. Contacting us this way is not a legal notice, and we cannot promise an immediate fix for every technical issue, but we do read and act on every message.