The city announced that restaurants and bars participating in the Dining Out NYC program can start setting up their roadway dining structures next Tuesday, preparing for the official start date of April 1.
Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez made the announcement yesterday.
This is the first year of the new program. Per 2023 City Council legislation that Mayor Adams later approved, establishments can operate sidewalk setups year-round, while roadway dining operates seasonally, from April 1 to Nov. 29. The revised regulations stipulate that roadway cafes must now be open-air, easily portable, and simple to assemble and dismantle.
Per the city's press release, 2,600 establishments have approval to operate on roadways or sidewalks. "By April 1, NYC DOT estimates 600 roadway dining applicants and another roughly 2,000 sidewalk applicants will be able to operate."
The release also states that "NYC DOT has received more than 3,400 Dining Out NYC applications from more than 3,000 restaurants." So, several hundred restaurants are still awaiting approval.
The glacial approval process made headlines last month. Of the thousands of applications, only 40 restaurants reportedly received permits in mid-February.
By Feb. 28, the DOT announced that it was reducing the red tape and granting conditional approvals for most roadway dining applicants before April 1.
According to NYC Comptroller Brad Lander's office last month, an estimated 12,500 restaurants offered outdoor dining at the height of the pandemic.
Restaurateurs blamed the four-month moratorium and the new complicated and costly process for the decline in outdoor setups. During the pandemic program, owners could simply fill out a form online and start serving food and drinks outside. DOT inspectors would come later to check on their structures.The new law ... banned winter roadway dining, added yearly fees for every roadway café license and required a public hearing for each curbside setup.
"Le Dive has demonstrated a continuous disregard for sidewalk cafe regulation, and at this time cannot be trusted to be a good steward of this program and must be held accountable," District 1 Council Member Christopher Marte said in public testimony.
Marte was responding to residential concerns and quality-of-life issues on the Canal Street strip from East Broadway to Allen, which some people believe is turning into Bourbon Street during warmer weather. According to the Times, Le Dive's application for a roadway setup remains under review.
Livable streets advocates have also criticized the seasonal restrictions on curbside dining. On a seasonably warm March 7, Open Plans hosted a "guerilla" pop-up curbside dining structure at C&B Cafe on Seventh Street.
The space quickly filled with C&B patrons.
"People are able to sit down and talk to their neighbors," Open Plans Co-Executive Director Sarah Lind told 1010 WINS. This is how we create community."
ABC 7 and Hellgate also covered the event.Today we're at C&B Cafe in the East Village, setting up a pop-up curbside cafe to demonstrate how quickly New Yorkers embrace these spaces! Outdoor dining brings undeniable vitality to our neighborhoods and should be available every season. pic.twitter.com/bAzY9uallG
— Open Plans (@OpenPlans) March 7, 2025
At the moment, it doesn't seem that many people involved in the process are terribly happy.
10 comments:
Should a cafe that doesn’t provide any indoor seating be allowed to have tables and chairs on their sidewalk and street?
yes?
Any sidewalk seating is required to have a sidewalk license according to the new rules. However, if you walk anywhere in the neighborhood, it seems that every other food establishment, whether they have indoor seating or not has tables and chairs setup on the sidewalk, thus skirting the law. No one wants to give up what they once had. It seems the city is turning a blind eye on this whereas it could collect a lot of money by requiring a license. These places are using public space for free.
Does this also allow for non-food alcohol establishments also? The loophole during covid allowed for packaged snacks and the like, which are not considered food in the restaurant sense of the definition. Curious because there has always been sidewalk cafe licenses for hospitality establishments. Allowing for 'drinking only' bars to set up in the streets seems ridiculous.
Another season where restaurant owners to get something for nothing and they will push the boundaries, and the city will allow all this even though it's detrimental to the quality of life for everyone living nearby.
If, due to Covid having existed in 2020, you suddenly MUST eat outdoors all summer, please move to Europe, where they are more than ready to accommodate you.
Nice. Glad outdoor dining is coming back. Brought the city to life. These past few months have been boring.
Stay inside if you’re going to be so cranky
This is all great news if you are rat, or a million rats. Is there a rule that restaurants must sweep or hose down the "public" space from which they profit from?
I live on a block that was full of outside seating and it certainly impacted our quality of life, particularly from Thursday to Sunday. But if they are good neighbors and close at a reasonable hour why not? I'd rather be able to eat outside and not worry so much about my bad immune system and catching anything. And as to Anon at 11:11, COVID still exists, restaurant owners pay taxes too, and in a crowded city where 70% of the people do not own cars I am all for streets being used for something other than cars. And as to snide remarks about moving elsewhere, consider the concept of living in a civil society.
Residents with cars need their street parking. Outdoor dining just attracts more rats.
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