New deal for street eats Dining sheds must close by midnight, be taken down for winter
Mayor Adams’ administration took a step Friday toward limiting the presence of roadbed dining structures in the city, finalizing rules for a new outdoor eating program that only permits the controversial corrals for eight months of the year.
Under the city rules, street dining structures cannot be fully enclosed, must be accessible for disabled New Yorkers and must meet certain dimension parameters, based on their location.
The rules largely mirror draft guidelines released in September, with some minor alterations to barrier guidelines and permitted hours. Under the finalized regulations, roadbed structures cannot be longer than 40 feet or wider than 8 feet; outdoor dining will be allowed until midnight seven days a week, a slightly smaller window than in the draft rules.
During the rulemaking process, the city received feedback from restaurant owners and residents. The rules are scheduled to take effect March 3, but restaurants with operational outdoor dining structures face an Aug. 3 deadline to apply for a permit or to take down their setups.
The Transportation Department drafted the regulations after the Adams administration and the City Council negotiated a deal to expand outdoor dining beyond its limited prepandemic form, while limiting the use of street sheds, which kept restaurants alive during COVID.
The structures, which the city permitted for free during the COVID crisis, have drawn out rats, annexed space where cars once parked and forced waiters to wrestle with unruly bike traffic. But the structures also saved untold restaurants during the pandemic.
The new program has been cast as a compromise to boost restaurants’ business and preserve outdoor dining that has flourished in the outer boroughs while curtailing the presence of unsightly and disruptive sheds that can drive Manhattanites crazy.
The new rules allows outdoor dining on sidewalks year-round, and on city roads for eight months starting April 1 and lasting until Nov. 29, forcing restaurants to remove structures in late fall and rebuild them in the spring.
Restaurateurs will be left to choose whether they wish to remove and then rebuild the structures each year.
In a statement, Adams said his administration is “investing in public realm projects across the city” and “fundamentally transforming what it feels like to be outside in New York.”
Today, some 13,000 restaurants participate in the city’s outdoor dining program, up from around 1,000 before COVID, according to the Transportation Department.
The city said it plans to launch a portal allowing restaurants to apply for licenses on March 4. A four-year license for sidewalk seating would cost $1,050. Roadbed permit fees would vary by size and location.
Outdoor dining has continued to grow in popularity as the city has pushed past the pandemic, according to research. Last spring and summer, rates of outdoor dining rose by about 24% compared with a year earlier even as total dining was flat, according to research by the OpenTable reservation app.
Andrew Rigie, the head of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, an association representing restaurants, said Thursday that his industry had been “anxiously awaiting” the finalized rules and that the new program would be better for restaurants than the pre-COVID era.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he said of the final regulations. “The permanent program is going to have an enormous impact on the future of countless restaurants across the five boroughs.”