Mamdani signs bill restoring year-round outdoor dining in NYC
It’s official: outdoor dining is once again a year-round fixture in New York City. Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday signed legislation establishing a permanent, year-round outdoor dining program that allows restaurants to keep roadway dining setups open through the winter, making permanent a pandemic-era program that served as a lifeline for businesses. The legislation amends a law under former Mayor Eric Adams that required restaurants to remove roadway dining setups from November 30 through March 31.
“Outdoor dining transformed our city once before, and now we are making sure it has a permanent place in NYC,” Mamdani said. “The previous law forced small business owners to dismantle and rebuild their outdoor dining setups every year, adding unnecessary costs and making it harder for neighborhood restaurants to plan for the future.”
“With the legislation we’re signing today, our favorite restaurants can continue bringing New Yorkers together over good food and great company in every season,” he added.
During the height of Covid-19, the city’s outdoor dining program had roughly 12,000 participating establishments, helping businesses stay afloat when indoor dining was prohibited.
Businesses were allowed to build outdoor structures, dining sheds in roadways, that gave patrons a less confined space to dine while keeping businesses in operation and their workers employed.
As the city recovered from the pandemic, some New Yorkers began to take issue with the dining sheds, with some abandoned structures attracting rats and taking up parking spaces.In response to these complaints, Adams established in 2024 the Dining Out NYC program, which added new rules for outdoor dining, including requiring businesses to disassemble and store dining structures in the winter, pay new fees, and follow specific design standards.
The new requirements led to a substantial decrease in participation, with just 1,600 restaurants taking part in the city’s outdoor dining program as of August, as 6sqft previously reported.
Last October, Council Member Lincoln Restler introduced Int. 1421, restoring year-round outdoor dining while scaling back aspects of Dining Out NYC. The bill also allows grocery stores to apply for sidewalk cafe licenses, eliminate seasonal limits on roadway cafes, and permit certain cafes to expand their frontage with approval.
The legislation was ultimately championed by City Council Speaker Julie Menin, with backing from Mamdani. Now, with his signature, roadway dining can remain open through the winter across the five boroughs.
The bill signed Monday removes seasonal restrictions on roadway restaurant setups and permits streetside dining areas to be weatherproofed and winterized. Restaurants, however, cannot operate outdoors after 11 p.m., compared with the previous midnight closing time, as 6sqft previously reported.
In a statement, Restler said the Adams-era regulations nearly “broke” outdoor dining, arguing that the new law will allow more businesses to participate in the program.
“The Adams-era regulations nearly broke outdoor dining, but this law will successfully restore outdoor dining to neighborhoods across the five boroughs,” Restler said. “Too many businesses 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,” he added. “Outdoor dining is great for local restaurants, great for the hospitality sector, and great for all of us to be able to enjoy a meal on the streets of NYC.”
The city’s Department of Transportation will develop rules in the coming months allowing restaurants to temporarily winterize their roadway dining setups.
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