Rejected from culinary school because she is deaf, woman goes on to launch her own pizza empire

Growing up, Melody Stein watched her parents run their own restaurant in San Francisco, and she dreamed of following in their footsteps.

She wanted to attend the California Culinary Academy, but her application was rejected, Stein told The Washington Post through a sign language interpreter, because she is deaf. They were concerned she wouldn't hear shouting in a kitchen, she said, and "they viewed me as a liability." This was more than 20 years ago, and today, Stein not only operates her own pizzeria, Mozzeria, in San Francisco, but she's getting ready to open a second location next year in Washington, D.C.

She runs her empire alongside her husband, Russ Stein, who is also deaf. They hire only deaf individuals for their restaurant and food trucks, and if diners know sign language, they can order their meals that way; otherwise, they can point at the menu or write down what they want. It's important to the Steins that they offer job opportunities to deaf people; a study from the National Deaf Center and University of Texas at Austin found that 48 percent of deaf people are employed, compared with 72 percent of the hearing population. "We're good at making sure our customer experience is a good one, because we're excellent at reading their body language," Russ Stein told the Post.

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