Year-round outdoor dining is coming back to NYC
In 2020, Rockwell Group debuted an outdoor dining block on Chinatown’s Mott Street. Photo courtesy of Emily Andrews for Rockwell Group
Year-round outdoor dining is coming back to the five boroughs. The New York City Council on Thursday passed legislation that allows restaurants to offer roadway dining in the winter, reviving a program that first launched as a way to keep businesses afloat during the start of the pandemic when indoor dining was prohibited. Current rules, approved by the Council in 2023, restrict roadway dining to April through November and force restaurants to follow specific design standards and disassemble and store the dining structures.
At the height of the outdoor restaurant program in 2020, about 12,000 establishments participated, according to Council Speaker Julie Menin. Today, just 1,600 restaurants take part in the program.
The Council’s Dining Out NYC program, which took effect in 2024, came as a result of complaints about the dining sheds taking away parking spots and attracting rats. The new program created additional regulations that made it harder for many restaurants to participate, including requiring businesses to disassemble and store dining structures in the winter, pay new fees, and follow specific design standards, as 6sqft previously reported.
“The Council is voting to bring year-round outdoor dining back, cut unnecessary red tape, and directly address cleanliness and quality-of-life concerns,” Menin said. “This is about making it easier for small businesses to thrive while creating more vibrant neighborhoods for New Yorkers and visitors alike.”
Sponsored by Council Member Lincoln Restler, Intro 655 removes seasonal restrictions for roadway restaurant set-ups and allows for the streetside eateries to be weatherproofed and winterized. Plus, restaurants cannot operate outdoors after 11 p.m.; previously, closing time was midnight. The Council passed the bill by a vote of 37-5.
“The Adams era regulations nearly broke outdoor dining, but this legislation will successfully restore outdoor dining to more neighborhoods across the five boroughs,” Restler said.
“Too many restaurants and cafes have been locked out of our roadway dining program by unnecessary red tape and seasonal restrictions. We are transforming the public realm by making it easy for thousands of restaurants to offer roadway dining.”
The legislation will also create a process for restaurants to convert seasonal licenses to year-round this fall, according to Restler. Design standards will be updated to allow for side and overhead coverings to make the setups more comfortable for bad weather. As required by the previous program, restaurants are required to have a moveable floor that is lifted and cleaned once a week.
Legislation approved on Thursday includes mandating operators clear setups of “trash, debris, graffiti, vermin, food scraps, and unsanitary conditions” and allowing restaurants to pay revocable consent fees in quarterly installments.
Open Plans, a nonprofit advocating for safe streets, had pushed for year-round curbside dining and fewer fees for restaurants.
“Outdoor dining does more than support our local restaurants. It gives people more places to sit, eat, gather, and spend time in their neighborhoods, taking space previously allocated for private cars and returning it to the community,” Sara Lind, co-executive director at Open Plans, said in a statement.
“We’re thrilled that the Council has taken this vital step to make outdoor dining year-round, and proud that years of advocacy have helped turn this vision into policy.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has signaled he will sign the legislation to expand outdoor dining.
“Mayor Mamdani has made clear that we must make outdoor dining year-round and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy that makes it harder for small businesses to participate in one of our city’s most popular programs,” Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for the mayor, told the New York Times.
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